Homemade "What Does the Fox Say" Costume

This is an easy, homemade DIY costume for Ylvis' "What Does The Fox Say" music video. The concepts here can be applied to other animals or any full body costume. This is my first Instructable and my first sewing project, so I would love feedback on how to make it better.

Are you the kind of Halloween costume-wearer that values accuracy? Is a store-bought fox tail that doesn't resemble Ylvis' famous YouTube video unacceptable? Then check out this Instructable for your guide on how to make your very own, simple Fox costume!! I guarantee you will have people stopping you to ask What Does The Fox Say on a regular basis.

The basic components are:
Fox tail
Fox body (most time-consuming piece)
Fox ears
Makeup

Note: background dancer costume will not be covered in this Instructable

Step 1: Materials

For the costume:
- 1 yard orange faux fur
- 3 yards orange fleece*
- 1 yard white cotton or similar material
- Zipper (16 - 20 inches)
- Elastic Band (optional)
- Cat ear headband
- Ylvis "The Fox" music video: 

Workshop materials:
- Measuring tape
- Scissors
- Hot glue gun with glue
- Beacon Fabric Glue
- Sewing materials (machine is ideal) 
- Butcher paper (or any long sheet of paper)
- a pen

*bear in mind I am 5'3", so if you are of a significantly different height you will want to adjust based on personal measurements

Step 2: Fox Tail

What you need:
- Faux fur
- Scissors
- Butcher's paper
- a pen
- sewing materials 

The fox tail is one of the most important components of this costume, largely because it does not resemble any commercially available fox or wolf-like tails. That said, it is fairly simple to make! I followed snobuni23's guide on how to make a fox tail for a Car Fox costume, with a few edits.

1) Draw the shape of the tail in the size that you want on a piece of butcher's paper - mine ended up being about 2 and a half feet long. While snobuni23 suggests cutting the tail into separate components, I did not do that. I drew out the whole tail as one piece in the same shape snobuni23 used, which you can see in the pictures. Bear in mind the tail in the video is fully orange with no white tip, so I am not using any white fur. 

2) Cut the tail-shaped drawing out of the butcher's paper and lay it on the backside of your faux fur. Trace the outline of the tail into the faux fur (doing this on the weave part will be much easier than drawing on the fur itself). 

3) Flip the paper cut-out along the horizontal axis so that your next one will be a mirror image of the first piece. Check out the photos above for a visual explanation

4) When you have your two tail-shaped pieces of faux fur cut out, lay them against each other so that their shapes match, with the fur parts facing in. This is so that when you sew it, the seam ends up on the inside instead of on the outside. Sew it on up, leaving a portion of it unsewn so that you can turn it inside out and then stuff it, as you can see in the picture. I stuffed it with excess fleece after building the body portion, but you can use whatever you want. Lighter material is best as long as it still gives the tail shape.

Step 3: The Ears Face

This step is one of the easiest.

1) Use a white cat ear headband from any Halloween store and use excess scraps of faux fur to cover them. I used Beacon fabric glue to apply them. 

2) One word of caution is to make sure that the fur is pulled away from where you are applying the glue, or it could get stuck and look messy

3) Pictures include notes on specific cuts. Mostly whenever there was a blank white space, I cut out a piece of faux fur and glued it in, making sure to keep the front of the ears white and visible. 

4) Makeup. The face makeup was the standard costume makeup you can find online or at a Halloween store. Apply black to the tip of the nose, and then a rounded white area above the lip, decorated with small black dots. 

Step 4: The Body

Making the body will require a great number of measurements on your part. Fortunately the costume is intended to be fairly loose, so you can be generous. I also added an extra inch to each measurement to take into account fabric lost when sewing.

What you need:
- 3 yards of orange fleece
- 1 yard of white cotton or flannel
- all workshop materials

1) Measure yourself from the bottom of your throat to the floor. Then measure across yourself at the widest spot of your body, most likely your hips. I cut out two rectangles of those measurements from my fleece. Note that this does not include sleeves. Measure from the floor to your groin, and cut both pieces of fleece up the middle to that length, as seen in the picture above. This will create legs for the costume. 

2) Sew both pieces together, except for the top part where your head will come out. Leave it inside out for now - you will invert it after the arms are added. 

3) Measure your arms from the wrists to the top of your shoulder. Wrap the tape measure around the thickest part of your arm. Cut out two rectangles with those measurements - remember you can add and inch or two to keep the costume from being too tight. Fold them in half lengthwise and sew them together, leaving either end open. 

4) Adding the sleeves. Sewing the sleeves to the body can be a little bit tricky. The sleeve will form a circle, but the body is still in rectangle form. You can angle the sleeve a little bit to create the natural slope of the shoulder. Sew it onto the body piece, making sure to create an opening for the sleeve. Once attached, sew along the top of the sleeve and up the shoulder, creating a neck hole (based on measurements of how many inches around your neck is). 

5) Adding the zipper. Once you have your neck hole, turn the outfit inside out. Cut down the middle of back-side in the length of the zipper you've purchased. The zipper will have panels on either side that you can slip under the cut you've made. I used hot glue to attach the fleece to the zipper panels. Just make sure to align the zipper with the cut so it zips all the way up to the top of the costume, and doesn't leave a hole at the bottom. 

6) Adding the white belly. Cut out your cotton or flannel in a rectanglular shape with a curved bottom. I measured from my shoulder down to the top of my legs, and across my whole chest minus one inch on each side. I hot glued the fabric onto the front, but you can probably sew it or just use fabric glue. 

Step 5: Adding the Tail to the Body

You're almost done! This is the final stretch. 

Adding the tail will depend on what you stuffed it with. If it's light, you can attach it using basic sewing and hot glue. If it's heavy, you can attach an elastic band that can go over your head or around your neck to keep the tail upright. 

1a) Pictured above is the sewing technique. The tail has to come up behind your head, so you sew it to the back of your costume next to the zipper, so that it's centered  but does not affect the zipper mechanism. Glue the base of the tail right above your tail bone on the costume, and it should hold. You can see this in the picture. 

1b) If you attach the elastic, make sure that it is pretty tight. Measure around your neck or your head, and then cut off a few inches, because elastic stretches. Sew the ends of your strip of elastic to either side of the tail on the part where it is rounded just before the tip.