i've been thinking about making and/or selling custom fursuits for people who don't want to sell their organs.
i already have some experience making exoskeletons and small dolls/plushies, i imagine it wouldn't be that much of a leap skills-wise.

i think having to pay 10k+ for a comfortable high quality fursuit is just outrageous. ignoring the class exclusions, those who can't afford it will be hesitant, and if they find another character they like it's unlikely they'll buy a new scale/fursuit for them.

if they're already cheap i see no point in my involvement, but if you can't reliably get good results under ~300 usd i'd like to throw myself into it at least for a few months; after which i'll share my techniques/findings to others.

i imagine there's at least a few furries on this site able to offer some information or opinions

I'm not into that fandom but It's probably cheaper than computer components at this point.

Anything is at this point.

i almost replied something like "thats what you'd think but there are a lot of markets that haven't had their demands met"
but then i remembered that computer parts (particularly memory) are exceptionally fucked now lol.

a gtx 1080 ti is going for around 200 usd, its over the specs i'd want in a gaming rig yet is priced like it's a rtx 3080 lol.

iirc I believe Buffpup has stated the fully custome one she's currently having made is clocking in at around $10k. But if you don't mind something more generic hit up your local Spirit Halloween or browse temu, you can get bitch basic heads for $50~70 and full bodies for a few hundred.

temu keeps making me solve goofy ass captchas every page so i gave up pretty early, could you provide a direct source for me to confirm with?
i'm specifically talking about ocs or anime character fursuits, made with at least some amount of quality not like a fleece blanket sewn together to loosely resemble the shape of a monkey or something. like the stuff you'd see around furry conventions with articulated tails and structure. spirit halloween didn't seem to have anything decent, at least what i could find with the search. just a few poorly made monkey costumes.

as a matter of principal i'd include cooling systems and such, not sure if other people do that but i will. regardless of if they request it and without raising prices to cover it, even if i have to do it at a net loss; assuming i actually charge for them in the first place.

Not a furry but I did a fair amount of sewing back in the day.

You'd be lucky to find someone in the U.S. that could make you regular custom fit clothing for under $300, though that at least isn't impossible. Fur suits are at least an order of magnitude more difficult to work with than normal clothing. Head patterns often have to be made by hand and require a lot of finicky needlework, not to mention the annoyance of foam carving/shaping. The material used for fur suits is both relatively thick and not terribly friendly to the average sewing machine. The length of the seams makes it more difficult to correct or cover up mistakes, and the whole thing being one piece just exaggerates that problem even further. And this is all before getting into other customizations like the cooling systems you're talking about.

If you do decide to try making your own, and assuming you don't already sew, I'd suggest starting on something both smaller and more simple than a whole ass fursuit. The material isn't cheap and it'll fight you if you don't know what you're doing. Aprons are pretty forgiving, and it might be worthwhile to try making a plushie or two before you try to make a custom head.

i'm pretty experienced with sewing both manually and with a machine, but you're right about it not being practical to sew a fursuit together under 300 usd.

i'm a fan of tech and various forms of engineering though, if one method isn't practical for your goals use a different one.

i'd probably either make a knitting machine that does it all in a few pieces or melt/staple the fibers at the seams. gluing isn't usually practical for clothing, holds weak and wears out fast. especially with shoes or other things you expect to have a lot of wear.

for actually assuring a proper fit i'd probably fit it to a 3d scan using gaussian splatting or maybe a regular additive vector point cloud idk.

i definitely won't know the specifics until i actually test out many ideas.

I never bothered to bookmark them. I've seen ones with rudimentary foam shaping, just th8ngs like breast/pecs and some minimal hip boosters. But otherwise yea, they are all ment to be generic one-size-fits-alls so they tend to be baggy. Admittedly I haven't checked Spirit this year, but their furry costumes were roughly similar to the temu ones I've described in previous years.

Cooling systems, beyond just the bitch basic fan mascot suits have are going to be pricey. The commercial ones run something like $200 for just the suit, not even including the actual system to run it. Fursuits aren't just expensive because of the skill of the creator, all the components are crazy expensive, anyone whose looked at upholstery foam to bring new life to a favorite seat cushion has suffered the sticker shock.

Actually heard cosplay can be hella expensive. I imagine fursuits are definitely more of the premium because of the fur and shit.