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Becoming a Centaur: Blending Horse and Human

This should be the last post for my centaur planning. Hiding the seams! The main seam would be between the horse half and human half of the body. There may be some seams between the hoof and foot but that's covered in the hoof post. 

Waisted 



So the human half of the costume meets the horse half around the hips or waist when connecting to horse half. How you connect the horse half to your body will determine what needs covering. If you connect mostly with belts around the waist and hips, then the area to cover is minimal. If you use a system of suspenders then there is more coverage. 

This is where the design of the character costume can play a big role. It can be a chicken-egg situation where how much you need to cover depends on your horse body design or you tailor your horse body design to the costume. 

Using a tutu and saddle blanket. 
For example, if you are creating a centaur character with minimal covering, then blending the horse half is done at the waist. So let's start there. 

Belts

A common blending tool is using a belt or the waistline of your horse pants. In this case you would create a belt piece out of the same material or with mohair wefts to create a circle of fur to wear around your waist. But there are many other types of belts to consider based on character. 

A cowboy belt with a big buckle or a warrior's cincher or a sort of loin cloth situation can make a good character and blending belt. You can also take cues from other centaur characters that use floral chains 

Horse Blankets and Tack

A horse blanket will cover most of the horse body too so take that into consideration. There are other types of horse harnesses and horse tack (saddles/straps/etc). You could fashion a yoke, carry a saddle with a front harness or just cover up with a horse blanket/sheet. 

Horse blankets have the double advantage of reducing material necessary to make the whole horse body.

Long Trains and Dresses

The more appealing cover/blend method is using a long train, shirt, cape, dress or skirt to cover up. 

I don't have much to add about it but it does work well and really makes it your character. 

Last Minute Advice

One of the things I struggle with in costume design is letting go of an idea that isn't working or admitting that I'm out of my depths. I hope the advice in this series of posts helped stimulate your imagination to creating a costume for your horse-person needs. If you have any experience making costumes of this nature and find there is advice I missed, please feel free to comment or contact me so I can make an addendum to this series of posts. As of this posting, I have not attempted a costume of this nature. This is just my thought and planning process should I pursue it. After writing it, some of the excitement is out of my system but I am seriously considering the experiment. 

Thanks for reading!


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