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FURSUIT REVIEW FORM

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Your Username
Khia


Name of Maker and Links
NovaFur https://www.novafur.com/


Your Relationship With The Maker
The maker is NOT a friend


Item Being Reviewed
Character name, type of commission, etc. This will be used to help title the submission on FursuitReview
Khia Partial in a toony style as a commission.


Species of Character
Lynx/house cat






Character Concept Art
http://imgs.fyi/img/7rc0.jpg
http://imgs.fyi/img/7rc2.png




Photos of Completed Product



Price Paid
650 cad paid in installments


Do you have any prior experience with fursuits?
No, it was my first fursuit.


How many hours have you worn/used the item(s) you're reviewing?
Give your best estimate.
5-10 hours total.


Date Commissioned or Bought
March 2016


Date Completed or Shipped
July 2016

Shipping Origin
Canada

Did the maker finish the item by the expected date (ETA)?
NO - the ETA was passed


Did you tell the maker about any issues you had?
Yes. I informed the maker that I'd had some issues with the head, that the sleeves did not fit properly, that though I had requested and paid for claws on the hand paws, they were not present, and that there were major issues with the feetpaws. I did not address the poor visibility, as I had nothing to compare the visibility to and assumed that all fursuits had poor visibility (it was my first time ever wearing a suit). The claws were not fully addressed, and while the feetpaws were completely rebuilt, which I appreciated, the sleeves, which did not fit properly, were left untouched, after sitting in NovaFur's possession for months.

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HEAD
The following questions ask you to explain how satisfied you are with each feature of the head of the costume. If you are reviewing only a set of ears, your answers would also go in this section.

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Wear Satisfaction
Please describe how it is to wear this piece of your costume.
It fit snugly. However...The head was not lined. I'm not sure if the maker still does this, but the lack of lining made it quite uncomfortable and had me concerned about wearing it for longer than a few minutes. The lining inside the ears was glued down and is bubbling in parts where the glue did not fasten well. The ventilation was poor due to the exposed foam pressing up against my face and a lack of vent holes. The visibility was the most debilitating part of the head. Due to the positioning of the eyes and materials used to make them (perfectly round, rigid plastic), it posed a major blind spot directly in front of me, so that I had to turn my head inside my suit or look to the side to see what was ahead. I did not bring this up to the maker, unfortunately, as I was new to fursuiting and believed that visibility was always poor in a fursuit. However, once I received a 2.0 version of my fursuit head from a different maker and had something to compare to, I realized the vision in the NovaFur suit was almost unacceptably poor.

Appearance Satisfaction
Please describe how satisfied you are with how your costume piece looks from the outside.
The symmetry was somewhat poor, particularly in the jaw. The shaving was a bit choppy but overall okay, but reduced the look of my character to be much darker than intended due to the type of fur that was used (a sort of gradient fur that is lighter at the top of each strand, darker toward the end of each strand). The markings were painted on using barely-visible material - I believe the maker has moved on from doing this, but in my case, the markings that distinguish my character were simply not visible. The fur was rigid where paint was applied. The ear colour of my character was changed "to make the character look more dynamic", which was insulting, and again, changed the appearance of my character. At this point, I had already corrected the character's tongue colour, which was posted to NF's instagram as a WIP before I could approve it, and was given a cold response, so I was too hesitant to correct the ear colour. The follow-me eye effect was not extremely prevalent. In comparison to the character's reference sheet, I was not satisfied that the finished work resembled my character.

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HANDS AND FEET
The following questions ask you to explain how satisfied you are with each feature of the hands and feet of the costume.

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Wear Satisfaction
Please describe how it is to wear these pieces of your costume.
The handpaws were not satisfactory. They were very loose and fell off if I held my hands at ease to other side, had a lot of exposed backing, the silicone pawpads were glued down over exposed backing and have started to fall off in spite of pretty much never being worn. They aren't lined.

One of the sleeves was too tight compared to the other, which fit perfectly. These were returned to the maker to be repaired, but after sitting in their possession for a few months, the repairs were not completed.

The feetpaws were originally given to me in unwearable condition - the bottom pad on one of the feet was lifting upon delivery and I could not walk in them, they were VERY difficult to put on as they were built around sneakers that had been heavily hot-glued. These were returned, and a completely new set was given to me at no extra charge. I still use the new set and really appreciate that the maker took the time to correct the feetpaws.

Appearance Satisfaction
Please describe how satisfied you are with how your costume pieces look from the outside.
The fur on the handpaws was trimmed directly across at the wrist, which does not look good, especially when butted up against the sleeves. The fur on the back of the hand also went in the opposite direction of the sleeves, which I thought was odd. Again, I'm not sure if the maker still does this, but they did hurt the visual appearance of my suit's handpaws. They also did not come with claws, which I had requested early in the commission process and presumably paid for. When I brought up the lack of claws to the maker and asked if I could supply NF with pre-chosen claws, I was given an unhelpful reply of roughly "it depends" and felt too uncomfortable to pursue it further. When I turned over items to be repaired, the maker said nothing about the fact that I was not handing over the handpaws. In hindsight, I should have been more insistent in having these corrected as they were a major component of my suit. :c

The sleeves could have been shaved, though I'm glad that they weren't, as they were built off of the same frosted fur as the head and would have been too dark.

The feet were originally the roughest part of the suit - there was so much exposed foam at the top that I didn't want to wear them. These were corrected and I was presented with new feet that looked and felt MUCH better, although the claws, which were supposed to be silver or grey, were black, which didn't match my reference sheets or request.

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TAILS
The following questions ask you to explain how satisfied you are with each feature of the tail(s) of the costume.

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Wear Satisfaction
Please describe how it is to wear these pieces of your costume.
Wearing the tail is fine. It's not too heavy, and the loops are fairly sturdy.

Appearance Satisfaction
Please describe how satisfied you are with how your costume pieces look from the outside.
It's alright. I find the separation of two different coloured furs to be a bit choppy and the end of the tail to be blunt and abrupt. I do wish the tail was a little more dynamic - it's a very straight-forward, bean-like shape, seems like it might have been two tear-drop shapes sewn together.

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OVERALL SATISFACTION
The following questions ask how satisfied you are with the overall buying experience, including your interactions with the maker and the resulting final product.

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How was your concept art realized?
I felt that my reference sheets were only loosely referred to. I provided one I had designed/drawn originally to give her a general concept early in the commission, and later commissioned a reference sheet by Neon Slushie for better clarity after the head was crafted (there were no major changes to the design - Neon Slushie worked off of the design I had given to NovaFur). Initially, the tongue and ear colours were made incorrectly (my character's parts were white, NF used pink). When I pointed out that the colours were incorrect, I was given a cold "I can probably manage" response and only one of the two errors were amended. I was told that the ears would stay pink to make the character "more dynamic", which was honestly very insulting. I was unfortunately too intimidated to say anything else at this point in the commission, but I think it should be a given that makers of any kind should follow their reference sheets and NEVER change a custom commission's design without approval. While I had initially asked if cheek tufts would be an issue for the maker, cheek tufts were barely present in the finished design. And of course, the markings on the face which distinguish my character the most were invisible and felt like an afterthought. Overall, I found the biggest flaw in the suit, apart from the visibility, was the fact that it did not resemble my character due to decisions made by the maker.


How well does everything fit together and match up?
My big grievance in terms of this were the sleeves vs the handpaws. I wasn't fond of how the fur was going one way while fur on the sleeves went the other way.


How easy was it to initially contact the maker for a quote?
They were very easy to reach from start to finish. We did the majority of our discussions on Facebook. I've unfortunately lost the last half of our history.


How satisfied are you with the response time from the maker?
How long did it take the maker to get back to you?
Questions were usually answered within a day or sooner.


How satisfied are you with the professionalism and customer service and of the maker?
Initially things went well, but sometimes the maker would give cold responses that left me feeling uncomfortable and burdensome. What changed things for me was a strange response I received once while discussing updates. I was told, essentially out of the blue, "don't think i'm not working on your suit while working on other suits, because i absolutely f@$%ing am". It came after I had liked a lot of their work on tumblr and instagram...I don't think they meant to be malicious, but it came across as extremely unprofessional to me and made me uncomfortable for the rest of the commission.


How satisfied are you with how long your project took to complete?
NovaFur announced early on that it would not be done when we had initially agreed it would be - NF had originally said it would be done in May, I would have been happy with July 1st 2016 in time for a local convention, but I stressed multiple times that I would rather it be late or take a while than for it to be rushed, however. While one incident came up which was COMPLETELY out of the maker's hands (an apartment in their complex caught fire and my fur needed to be washed to eliminate the smoke), I took notice of the fact that my project fell behind other personal projects, including a gift for a friend who was in need of a body suit, and a personal fullsuit complete with bat wings, both of which were started and completed during the time I was waiting for my commission. A few days before the convention, I was asked how many fingers I wanted my handpaws to have - something I thought had been negotiated, so I know that parts of my fursuit was put off until the last minute and rushed to completion.


Are you happy with the product you received?
In the end, unfortunately, I was not satisfied with the suit. It was largely unwearable due to being uncomfortable or not fitting well, and it did not represent the character I had paid for. I was upset with the fact that when initiating the commission, NovaFur told me they ALWAYS cleared fur choices with their clients, only to be told a few weeks later, "Your fur has been ordered" without my approval. If I had been able to examine the fur beforehand, I could have requested a solid grey colour to prevent the inevitable darkening of the suit after shaving. All of my dissatisfaction regarding this suit has less to do with the quality of the build or abilities of the maker at the time, but more to do with the fact that the maker made decisions about my character's appearance without my approval, used unsuitable materials, and rushed the suit after falling behind.


Describe your overall experience with this maker.
Overall, I sincerely hope the maker makes a big effort to improve their business practices and to treat their clients and their characters with respect, as well as taking criticism well and not directly to heart, as hard as it can sometimes be as an artist. As I had no experience with fursuits and had no idea what to expect, I was initially VERY excited about the suit, and as it began to whither and things such as visibility became known to me, I did my best to make the best of it, but in the end the character's lack of resemblance and phyiscal issues put me off. I was approached by the maker when I discussed with another client of theirs that I was thinking of refurbishing it, and the maker offered to rebuild the head, which was VERY kind of them, but I was hesitant due to the way the ill-fitting sleeves were handled, which had been turned over for repairs that were never made :c I did ask them if we could instead consider an arrangement for me to pay for changes to the tongue in order to sell the suit, but was completely ignored So at that point, I guess I gave up on the suit being a positive experience. I wish this could have been more positive, but in the end, upon looking back, and as I keep finding holes and flaws in the suit, it was just not a good experience for me. Again, I hope changes are made for the maker's future endeavours.

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FINAL SCORE
FursuitReview scores by having you answer the following question: Would you recommend this maker to another?
Pick one of the scores below that you feel honestly reflects your commissioning experience as a whole, including the quality of your item(s), the appearance, and how you were treated by the maker.

NO


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[YES] Positive = The reviewer would recommend this maker to another
[OK] Neutral = The reviewer may or may not recommend this maker, depending on certain circumstances (reviewer clarifies what these are)
[NO] Negative = The reviewer would not recommend this maker to another, unless the maker significantly changes their practices

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