Pup Hood - Tumblr Posts
I decided to make one of those dog masks the kinksters seem to like. I'm nearly done with this first prototype copy, I just need to make the ears and pound in the rivets for the straps.
I’m decently happy with how the snout turned out. Though to be honest the primary goal for this was to work out a system for attaching big masks to your head with straps and buckles. I’m hoping to be able to use the forehead/sideburns base format to make other things like a less encompassing version of a plague doctor, or a dragon, or anything else that would want to project out past the front of your face. And hey, it works with my glasses! So that’s fun.
(And excuse the shoddy bathroom selfie, I just wanted to get something posted.)
I made this pup hood a couple years ago. It was my first experiment with this general format of mask, and I’ve used some details I’d tried out in it in a few other projects. It’s been sitting on top of my completed projects pile for quite some time, but I rarely get photos of it.
Obligatory Etsy link!
This aquatic dragon’s streamlined profile helps it cut through the waters smoothly, and its shimmery blue coloration lets it blend in and evade detection as it stalks its prey.
The mask is made of relatively thick 6 oz vegetable-tanned leather. That thickness is a bit much for a lot of the more delicate stuff I do, but it gave this a really nice solidity and heft.
The eye pieces are an iridescent acrylic plastic that reflects greens and yellows depending on angle, and is rose-tinted when looking through it.
I'm feeling really happy with the riveted style I've been working out with these masks. It still always makes me think of like metal panels assembled into a submarine, or something like that. Always gives a bit of a steampunk slant to the aesthetic.
As for overall concept/form/vibe, I feel like I’m doing a good job of hitting my target of the uncanny valley between fursuits and pup hoods. Which means I’m never really sure if there are enough people who want this sort of thing for it to be viable. But I like them, and I think it’s good to push a greater variety of ideas out into the world.
Previously seen here, and assembly photos here.
And it’s up for sale on my Etsy shop!
Here’s my drone dragon mask! (that I apparently never posted nice photos of.) It’s based on a robotic dragon concept, along the lines of protogens or synths but simplified to work with my riveted leather aesthetic. The black visor is also leather, with a pattern of a few hundred holes to allow for filtered vision, but blocking the view to the inside.
It's got enough space inside to fit over glasses!
It is available on my Etsy shop! I’m also totally happy to do this in custom colors.
Designed by me, laser-cut out of 4 oz thick vegetable-tanned leather, then dyed, formed and assembled by hand with nickel-plated rivets and buckles.
Wolf skull muzzle mask commission that I just finished up! It took more back-and-forth with the client than normal, but I'm really happy with the final result.
Made of 4 oz vegetable-tanned leather, which I laser-cut, dye black, form to shape, paint white, and seal up all myself. I actually took a good number of photos while making this, so here's a making-of post.
If you'd like a version of this for yourself, I've listed it up on my Etsy shop!
Mask interior appreciation post, full hood edition.
I don’t usually take Nice product photos of the interiors of my masks, but I think they’re fun to see anyway. Some of them reveal some of the little compromises that you end up with when designing stuff, some give clues to my process if you look carefully.
Could you see yourself inside one of these? Can you tell what they are from this view? (answers in tags)
So if you’re not aware, furries have been getting into pup play in recent years, and sometimes they commission art of their characters wearing pup hoods. Which presents a problem of, where do the ears go? Normally they are drawn poking through holes in the hood, and I always think it is cute and silly.
This was my attempt at making that physical. Roughly mimicked the standard hood pattern in leather with laces up the back, very simple detailing. (I liked that nose though.)
Ears by a local friend who goes by Puff.
This one sold at Anthro New England this last weekend. I’m likely to try refining the concept and making another in the future, we shall see.
My Lucario outfit!
We need to have Halloween every 3 months so I can wear shit around town more often.
I designed this outfit to be clearly furry but distinctly not a fursuit. It's a genre of costume that I want to see more of.
Component parts are: the pup hood style mask, furry vest, harness with the chest spike, arm warmers with the hand spikes, spiked arm bands, Thai fisherman pants for extra baggy, and tail. I don't do a lot of sewing, and I don't plan to aim for selling sewn crafts, but it's fun to pick up new skills.
New design! I finished this jackal hood just before the new year. I designed it to be angular and geometric, leaning in the direction of an Anubis style. I'll gladly admit to referencing Wild Gas Mask's jackal with the hexagonal snout shape, but I think I went in a decently different direction with it.
This is the first full canine hood that I've made! I'd sorta avoided it for many years. When there's dozens of people making cool versions of a concept, it's hard for me to feel motivated to throw my hat into the same ring. So I'd focused on other species like dragons or sharks. (Terrible business decision, I know, to just not have anything aimed at the pup play market.) But with this idea I finally felt like I had an idea unique and interesting enough to join the fray.
I'll have this one (and hopefully a second one with gold details) at my dealers den table at ANE in a couple weeks, and after that it will be available for continuing sale on my Etsy. I'll save most of the photos until I'm ready to start pumping for sales though.
The jackal stalks the night in silence, always alert and watchful. Is he guarding against danger, or waiting for an opportunity to strike?
After years of thinking I didn't have any good canine hood ideas, I finally remembered that Anubis is a good dog. I wanted to put a lot of character into the mask, so I really leaned into the sleek angular shaping. Especially happy with how the pointy ear cups mirror the corners of the ears.
If you'd like this psychopomp to weigh more than just your heart, you can find him over on my Etsy!
Working on a pattern that could serve as a base layer for pup hoods and variants. Will be making this in a heavy garment type leather, rather than the stiff veg tan that I normally use. Will probably just make this quickly and test the fit, then retrofit it with ears/snout.
I wanted something with more panels than the typical 2-panel Mr-S style construction, with the one main seam at the forehead wrapping all the way down the sides/back. That works well in the stretchy neoprene, but when I tried it a while ago in leather it came out boxy and awkward. Also with my workflow I need to build the mask out of smaller pieces to fit in my laser cutter.
I really cranked on this project yesterday.
Went for cutting cardstock templates and then tracing and hand-cutting the leather. Partly because garment leather is a bit more annoying to cut using the laser, partly to test the time difference. None of the shapes in this piece are particularly detailed, so it wasn't too hard to cut.
The chin turned out too tight, but it'll be easy enough to cut it out and make a new one. Will do that when I decide what sort of snout to make for it.
Working on a pattern that could serve as a base layer for pup hoods and variants. Will be making this in a heavy garment type leather, rather than the stiff veg tan that I normally use. Will probably just make this quickly and test the fit, then retrofit it with ears/snout.
I wanted something with more panels than the typical 2-panel Mr-S style construction, with the one main seam at the forehead wrapping all the way down the sides/back. That works well in the stretchy neoprene, but when I tried it a while ago in leather it came out boxy and awkward. Also with my workflow I need to build the mask out of smaller pieces to fit in my laser cutter.
Yaa more pride art lets goo
Yeahh we got. Lavender dogthing with the original gay pride flag and leather pride And More lets goo
Okay ramble under here
Honestly this is mostly just centered around a mutual frustration I have with both the gay and furry communities-
You guys know our first communities formed in kink and fetish groups right? You know that right?
Like yes of course queer ppl been around longer than that but the first real places we had to go where we could reliably meet up and hook up and all that were in kink spaces.
The first fursuiter was a man named Robert Hill, also known as Hilda the Bambioid. Hilda was a sexy Dominatrix Deer character! It was a sex thing from the start. Some of the oldest furry artists (meaning furry as a subculture! Not just anthropomorphic character. Theres a different and I recommend you learn it. Mickey Mouse is not a furry.) were making fetish content from the word go.
Sexuality has always been a big part of both the queer community and the furry community
So WHY am I seeing so many people downplay it and insist that "Only Freaks Care About That " and "REAL members of the community care more about the wholesome side-"
WHY am I seeing y'all shame queer people (especially trans women) for existing as sexual beings? WHY am I seeing y'all pin furry NSFW as something evil? WHY am I seeing this huge push back against kink and sex-positivity? WHY am I seeing purity culture being pushed in some of the most (as we've been described by outsiders)"impure" communities?
A trans woman will simply elude to the fact that she experiences sexual attraction and you guys jump at her throat for it. Y'all would NOT have survived the leather bars of the 70's and 80s. Weak ass generation. Y'all claim to know our history but your knowledge of our history seems to start and end with stonewall. You don't know shit about our history, you don't know our iconography, you don't know about the Lavender Menace, you don't know about the Hanky Code, you don't know about our first communities.
While you're harassing people on the internet over the most useless of queer discourse- the cishets are trying to take away our rights. They don't CARE about us. They don't care how squeaky clean and digestible we are to them. They want us eradicated because we are an easy target and you're LETTING IT HAPPEN.
A good portion of today's queer discourse was started by Trolls and TERFS for the specific purpose of causing upset in the community and you guys choose to perpetuate it without considering who you're hurting by doing so. Masc lesbians are a part of your history. Transexuals are a part of your history. Drag is a part of your history. Kink is a part of your history. You have to respect it, even if you don't like or understand it.
Just. Stop trying to sanitize queerness. Stop trying to sanitize the furry community. Stop trying to appeal to the cishets and normies. Stop hurting your queer siblings in the name of a fight that was started by a terf who would just as easily call you a slur.
All you're doing is erasing our history.
Feeling like a proper pup!
Come back to bed. Puppy wasn't done with cuddles yet.
Feeling like the goodest of boys! Thanks to pup Strings for making me look so proper! You can follow Strings on instagram here.