I feel like maybe around 2012 the whole concept of eras died.
Like I can clearly visualize items/people/media from the 60s/70s/80s/90s/00’s, but everything is homogenized now and there’s really no “style of the time” either. I think everything from 2013+ will just be remembered as a malaise era, if anything. Maybe the style of the 2050’s will be post cyberpunk apocalyptic? I have no idea.
Chances are equally good their fursuit character will look like a 90s/2000s kid, too lol
But actually having just spent a whole week with 4 suiters with hella good hair: I have no idea how they do it. You’re wearing a balaclava and a big foam head for several hours, sweating like crazy, but when you finally pop that shit off, you look like a shampoo model. How?!
Are they actually sweating? There are systems for doing active cooling from fans running off battery power.
https://fursuitsupplies.com/fans
Or liquid cooling, including ice and evaporative cooling?
https://archive.ph/MiMVI
Hmm. Also, while I’m no expert, my understanding is that animals that are in a cold climate, tend to have underfur to reduce convection. Like, dog breeds aimed more at warm climates don’t have that. I bet that one doesn’t need a lot of dense, short fur at the base. Even if there’s long fur, it might not be as insulating as one might expect relative to an animal.
considers
If the fabric isn’t actually visible — and for furred areas, I guess it isn’t, because all someone can see is fur — maybe one could use something like burlap at the base, stuff that has a lot of room for air to flow through.
I dunno what any issues with using carbon fiber are, but my understanding is that it’s pretty thermally-conductive. In some uses, carbon fiber is made into rigid surfaces, is a composite, has resin, but I believe that you can get it as a resin-less fabric.
kagis
https://www.ngfworld.com/en/fiber/high_thermal_conductivity.html
I mean, if you figure that it’s possible to use a fabric made out of that, that’ll probably conduct a lot of heat away from hot places.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8867053/
According to this, carbon nanotube microfibers have thermal conductivity hundreds of times greater than nylon.
kagis
Apparently you get get fabric made from the stuff — though this example looks to be awfully expensive, so carbon nanontube-based fursuits probably aren’t practical for general use yet:
https://dexmat.com/store/galvorn-carbon-nanotube-fabric/
https://dexmat.com/carbon-nanotube-fiber/
https://dexmat.com/industries/e-textiles/
I doubt that people are actually going all the way to carbon nanotube fabric, but if we can get costs down, I imagine that they could.
The best these guys have is a fan you hold that looks like food you shove into the head’s mouth to blow air in your face. Sometimes maybe 120-240mm computer case fans are built into yhe head (none of my friends had these tho).
I have wondered since seeing a Technology Connections video about refrigeration if those heat pump panel things (they’re just a square of some material that gets hot on one side and cold on the other; forgot what they were called) would work well for fursuiting. Turn the inside of the suit into a straight up fridge.