Arms race between fursuit noses and camera lenses when?
this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2026
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I gained this unwanted knowledge involuntarily, but am more cultured for it.
More or less, yeah.
Fabrics and polyurethane foam used to be the only options for fursuits, but this started shifting over the last 10 years or so. Some enterprising furries started molding components like teeth, claws, and noses from soft rubber materials, which experienced a brief renaissance before hard plastic 3d-printed parts started supplanting the more labor-intensive custom molded pieces.
At the time when this was posted, hard plastic parts had become common for new fursuits, but now that 3d printers can use TPU and other flexible materials, they've become the new standard. Many fursuit makers actually use this technique to print the whole frame of the fursuit head, making them more durable while also improving airflow over the old-style carved polyurethane foam head bases;
A pic of an old-style carved polyurethane foam head base. 
A pic of a new-style 3d printed TPU head base.
Could you address the booping context?
I always found it weird how fursuit snoots widen as they expand forward, unlike the animals they depict. I know it enhances the cartoony look, but it looks too exaggerated for my dumb tastes
There are realistically proportioned fursuit heads too, they look AWESOME
This is so cool. Shit like this is why I love being in community with furries, despite not being one myself. I'm always awed by the creativity
(Plus furries always throw the best parties)
I love it too, especially with how quickly the community evolves. New techniques catch on and spread like wildfire, and we make a great indicator species for the health of online spaces.
(Can confirm about the parties too =3)
*pawed
Thanks for sharing this info, because you've given me some interesting ideas to ponder. My personal craft domain is garment making, and in recent years, I've been having a lot of fun exploring stuff that exists in the space between "clothing" and "costume". I don't have much experience in 3D printing, so the stuff about 3D printing flexible materials like TPU is new to me. I should explore this more, because I bet I could make some awesome stuff with this method (such as in corsetry)
Definitely do look into this, and check out some of the work folks are already doing with combining fabrics and 3d printing. =D
I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Lol, I don't have one, but I post on Lemmy a lot, so there's that. =3
I would also like to subscribe to your newsletter
Lol, I don't have one, but I post on Lemmy a lot, so there's that. =3
What the other two people said
Lol, I don't have one, but I post on Lemmy a lot, so there's that. =3
Well, Lemmy does have something
Dang, no comments view?
That makes at least four of us.
XD
I have an approximate knowledge of many things and a fascination with new tech, but I've only been posting on Lemmy recently. Guess I oughta get started on a real newsletter. XD
Could you imagine having to take your thousand dollar fursuit head to a shop for repairs after only a few outings? I’d be pissed.
That sort of wardrobe malfunction is not terribly uncommon since fursuit-making is still mostly a cottage industry where each piece is a one-off custom, but most reputable fursuit-makers offer a limited-time warranty to cover minor alterations and repairs.
Furry conventions also usually have someone offering repair services (sometimes even for free) in the dealer's den in addition to the tables selling everything from parts and accessories to entire pre-made fullsuits.
I should have assumed, but I am just now realizing the suits cost that much and that there are on fact fursuit repair shops. I would have thought it was going into a fabric store.... Living over here in my isolated ignorance I guess lol
(Comically I had to go back and edit pursuit to fursuit because it wasn't in my phones standard diction)
They're expensive for the same kind of reasons that getting a tailor to custom make a normal suit from scratch would be expensive. Takes a lot of labor and only a relatively small pool of people have the relevant skills, plus some of the material costs add up.
This is a big part of why I love being in community with furries, despite not being one myself.
I've done a lot of bespoke clothing making — mostly for myself, but occasionally I've done things on commission. People are often astounded at how much high quality craftsmanship costs when the skilled labour is properly compensated.
I once wore a €20,000 dress (it was rented for me by a girlfriend so I could attend a swanky event with her). Before we went out, I was poring over all the construction details, desperate to learn all I could from this absurd scenario I had found myself in. I remember feeling weirdly dismayed to learn that there wasn't a single thing in that dress that would be beyond my own skill level. Instead, it was just countless little hand finished details that must've taken an inordinate amount of time and care to do. For example, all the seam allowances catch stitched down (whenever they weren't fully enclosed in a french seam or similar). Truly high quality items take time, and can't be easily automated. Sure, there are components that can be optimised with computers or machines, but it requires a skilled human to actually integrate all this into the completed piece.
I have a friend who uses to draw furry porn, and she said she found the experience to be super artistically liberating, because for the first time in her artistic career, she had people haggling her prices up, because she was way underpricing her works. On average, furries seem to have a greater level of respect for the time and skill that goes into making custom things, which I love. My friend is now making art in a domain that's closer to her own personal artistic interests, but she says that she will always cherish the time she spent in the furry community, because it gave her the confidence she needed to advocate for the value of her art and her skills when she was chasing her dreams.
They've been around a long time actually. Somebody had to make mascot costumes, and i imagine that skillset translates pretty well to fursuits
Mascots are just commercially acceptable fursonas
Mascots are corporate / sports fursonas.
And the people behind those corporate fursonas hate it. Horny furries drove cereal mascot Tony the Tiger off of Twitter. XD
Horny furries got Tony the Tiger off?? 👀
Tony wouldn't fist any of them, despite wearing the red scarf
I read through all of this, having been unaware of it happening. "Knot first or pizza first?" madr me actually lol
lamarck has entered the chat
Why are people booping with camera lenses?
Hard to tell how close you are with a snout you can't feel maybe
I suppose in a crowded convention space where you're trying to get full lengths of people you could get to that distance? Surely you'd still want a longer lens though otherwise everything's going to be wildly distorted?
You can always try!
You can remove that little tip from bus hammers and glue them to the noses in order to instantly shatter any glass like material that comes into contact with it. Allegedly.
Really only for tempered glass like car windows. Regular glass would just get a little ding.
A little ding is enough to render a camera lens pretty useless.
A cracked lens still takes pictures pretty well without any visual artefacts
Most lenses only care about the angular light distribution, essentially averaging over the lens surface. So a ding or crack would just add a tiny portion of grey or black to the entire image
Edit: This is for cracking the front protective glass of a camera lens. If an actual optical lens splits in two it will be misaligned and bad things will happen.
that's true, good point
Allegedly.
Allegedly allegedly allegedly
- The Onion
So you allege.
Pretty sure the nose on mine might not withstand repeated boops, but depends on what they're made out of. Someone already pointed out something to the extent of how there is more choice in what material is used to make the suit. So, kinda depends on material used.
I'm pretty sure I've seen in the past at least a few suits on the more expensive side using actual hard, boop resistant, materials for the nose. Couldn't tell you the material since I'm not an expert.
Edit: more about 3D printed suit bases instead of just more materials. Whoops.
They are truly knights of the new era