Making a fatsuit for a performance - http://www.andsewitwas.com/merrywives02.htm

An “empathy suit”, could be good for some suits - http://www.empathysuit.com/
[Maintainer's note: This site is *NOT* in the FAQ to poke fun at others, neither is it in here for humorous use. It is here to make suggestions on suit creation.]

Diadexxus' excellent method page on doing muscle suits - http://www.chameleon.net/~diadexxus/vortex/body/body.htm

Brokken's tutorial on doing muscle suits - http://www.timberwolf.org/html/costumeconst1.html

A unique way to do a fatsuit - http://www.casamai.com/gopher2.htm

A possible alternative could be the overpadded 'sumo wrestler' suits seen at some amusement parks.

From: MikeCoyote
the first thing you'll need is a duct tape dummy. really making padding for a body suit isnt much more difficult than making a head.you start with and idea of what you want the body to look like. then add a large piece of foam to the area yo uwanna pad. cut the foam down till its a rough approximation of the shape you want (the fur will cover all of the roughness of the foam). do this for every area you want padded. then you just need to tailor down a body suit pattern to fit on top of it. when doing this I usualy use thin 1/2 inch thick pieces of foam to build up the shape I want, usualy it dosent take that much foam to pad the suit up the way I want.

as far as attachingthe foam to the suit heres a couple of ideas. the first way is to sew the padding to a undersuit of some kind. then sew the fur down on top of that. also its helpful to sew some fabric over the foam since the foam isnt very strong and will come loose fairly quickly. another idea is to sew the foam to the fursuit itself. once again adding a backing to help hold the foam in place since it wont hold very well by itself. hope all that helps a bit.

From: TopFox on the subject of “big fat costumes”

Brian Hagen asked:

A godzillion thanks for the nifty pictures you provided for the FTP
site. Seeing them brought up a question that has been plaguing me for
awhile. Namely, for big fat costumes like Jingle Bear and the Pirate
Bird, what do you use to pad out the bodies?

There are at least three ways I know of to pad out a larger body. The most common one they used at Disneyland was hoops. Inside the costumes was an innersuit, usually quilted cotton or such. Attached to this inner suit was an 'inner skeleton' so to speak. The more shape needed, the more hoops would be used. The Pirate Bird costume was done this way. This method can give characters sort of an accordian look or movement. Shawn Keller built a Chip costume and utilized hula-hoops (cut and re-shaped) to give it the Disney shape.

Second most common would be using foam. However, as you mentioned, it can crush. I've seen con costumers use various amounts and kinds… one even just filled his suit with it. Sort of made him a walking plush. I've also thought of this technic. (It was when I was thinking of doing a 'toy fox', one that LOOKED as if it were a stuffed toy. May still do it someday… if someone doesn't beat me too it now!)

Third, and this is how the Jingle Bear was done, is inflate the costume. Jingle Bear was an inflated costume. A balloon covered with fur. Disney had tried these in the mid-70s without much success. They ARE cooler than standard fur suits… but have their own problems. I remember when they showed us the costumes many of the models (the people usually hired for costume promotions) were pleased to find the suit cooler. However, by middle of the promotion, most agreed with me that their bulkiness and awkward control were more trouble than the heat in more standard costumes.

- Pockets?
- Trapunto?
- Body Sculpting