Obviously one of the most challenging parts of the costume is the horse half. Horses are particularly tricky creatures to recreate. There are a few ways to make it more accessible or challenging depending on what you want to do and what your skill level is.
To make the costume as convenient as possible, you want to make sure the horse half stays light-weight and balanced.
Inspiration References
First, let's consider various depictions of centaurs or horses throughout media and history.
Some of the more popular or at least what I know are Disney's Fantasia, Chronicles of Narnia (BBC and Disney), and a Wrinkle in Time.
For horses, we can look at My Little Pony, Spirit Stallion of Cimarron, again Disney's Fantasia, or the myriad of horse characters from animations.
These depictions of centaurs and horses (particularly in animation) can simplify the design of the horse in ways that may make the creation of our costume design much easier. Pay attention to how they handle leg and hoof anatomy!
Simplify the Horse
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| This still "reads" as a horse/pony |
The IDEA of a horse can be easier to construct than something more realistic. If you think of My Little Ponies or a blocky horse toy, you can see that perhaps it's not so hard to make a horse.
In this case, there are no hooves and the part where hooves would be has a lot of surface area. There are no visible knees or fetlocks (ankles). I've seen a few builds that just have straight tubes or cylinders for the horse legs and that works!
Otherwise, you're likely to try to imitate the anatomy of a horse's legs and hindquarters. Which can be quite the feat. The bends and narrowness of the legs can be tricky to balance out and often are not strong enough on their own to support the weight of the costume (even with a frame inside.) Then there's also the fact that our human legs, especially around the calves, can be meaty. Much bigger than a horse's cannon bone, which is mostly tendons and bone...no meat. VERY skinny. So, keep that in mind when creating your hind legs so the 4 legs together look to be part of one animal. It can look odd to have beefy front legs and skinny back legs. (I know some people are blessed with thin legs and you likely wouldn't have to worry about this for a child's costume.)
That should cover the idea of the overall design approach. Whether you're trying to go realistic or cartoony. (I don't know if everyone puts this much thought into it but I do.)
Hot to Trot or Not?
It's very cool to see the hind legs move with the front legs. But it is more challenging. Having pre-posed legs or static legs are great because if you're having a photo taken, who's going to know they don't move? Now static legs will basically need to be dragged around. You can design it so the hind legs don't quite reach the ground. Otherwise, office chair wheels or small wheels attached to the legs can make the costume a bit more mobile.
Moving legs can be attached to a wheel as well or more of a marionette style with fishing wire pulling the legs.
Now the inconvenient thing about any centaur costume is that stairs are a pretty daunting. Knowing the terrain or venue you will attend might affect how you make this.
Adjust the Frame Rate
The basic idea of the costume is to wear the horse body like a tail, but the longer the tail the heavier it gets and heavy costumes will drag along the ground. So most of builds of centaurs use a frame or armature of sorts to distribute the weight, create the basic shape and hold everything in place.
The very basic is what I like to call the "H" frame or the Table.
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| PVC table frame |
The idea here, the human legs account for one pair of legs on the table and the frame provides the others. The hind legs go straight down or stay static. If you are attempting a more realistic horse or an ambulating costume, the hind legs become more complicated. They require joints. And it can help to have a bit more frame to distribute weight because jointed legs are generally NOT strong enough to stand on their own. This is where I see the more "box kite" type frames.
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| Boxes to rest on the bum and help round out the barrel (tummy). |
The benefit of a suspender design is it will help support moving legs.
Top Me Off
How you dress the human half can help blend the human and horse halves. It can also hide belts or other connection points. A lot of costumes tend to be topless or minimal. Sometimes consider making a mane that runs down your human back can be a method of hiding connection points. Horse Blankets or long dresses can hide a multitude of sins.
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| Roleplaying a Centaur at Magic School |
We can get more into this later.
Common Challenges
In my viewing of centaur costumes, I noted a few things that make the horse half seem a bit off. These are things I would want to avoid in my build but to be fair, these are acceptable defects due to the complex nature of this concept.
1. The Droop/Saggy Backend
This has to do with the weight of the costume and only suspending things from the waist. To look at a fursuit example, if you have a large tail that weighs a few pounds, it will likely drag on the ground if you only attach it with one belt. But with a belt and suspenders, the tail can be lifted aloft more easily.
In our centaur the solution for this is multi-faceted. You could use belts and suspenders to help distribute more weight. You could prop up the back half with the armature. There are ways to use extra supports like using the tail as a kickstand to give the backend a little lift.
2. Tucked Back Legs
One way this happens is simply a misunderstanding with what horse hind legs look like and how they behave. Setting the hock at an angle is more appropriate for cats and dogs than for horses.
Next, we can discuss how we can take some of these design decisions into character concepts.
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