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Becoming a Centaur: Other Horse Parts

The other horse features to include on our Centaur costume are decidedly less complicated than horse legs, thank goodness! The features I'm going to highlight are manes, tails, ears, and horns. 

Manes

I'm going to start with the easier part to talk about: the mane. For the most part, centaurs just have long hair, so a wig of your choosing or just using your own hair is all you need. Done. Moving on. 

...

I'm kidding. There is one aspect I wanted to highlight and that's back hair or hair along the spine. Personally, I think it's a cool design touch to the costume and it can be useful for hiding straps or support systems for the horse body. You can make this out of wig wefts, mohair or yak hair wefts, or faux fur or perhaps even brush bristles (for mohawk-like manes). I imagine you would have to include this as part of the wig or attach it to an accessory. Possibly latex it down to your skin directly.

Now I'm done with manes. Onto tails!

Tails

Horse tails can be quite diverse and fun! They come in all kinds of different lengths and styles even in the real world (not just on colorful, cartoon ponies)! 

You can get horse tail extensions to use (it's a thing. My horse didn't need them. He had a luscious, thick tail). Human hair extensions work as well. Nylon or Synthetic wig fibers are an excellent material to use for a horse's tail. You could use faux fur for a stylized tail. It is a matter of attaching it to a core post and blending it into the tail. You can have lots of fun styling the tail. We used to french braid my horse's tail for shows. Or you could use a horse tail sock. You have lots of options. 

It can start to get tricky if your centaur is a unicorn, donkey, or zebra. In these cases, it's helpful to look at sewing a tufted tail. There's a method to it. Faux Fur helps with most tuft situations. 

Ears

This is another very much OPTIONAL part of the costume. Human ears are acceptable for centaurs. But you can also design them with elf ears or horse ears. Your silicone or latex ears will cover yours in this case. Easy peasy. If you prefer to have the ears on top of your head, you can craft horse ears to attach to a headband or wig. Horse ears look a bit like leaves or teardrops. 
Felt, Suede, Velvet, or shaved faux fur are all great materials for making animal ears. Cartoon pony ears tend to look a bit more like cat ears in a way so 

Horns and Other Things

Unicorns have horns. Same with Kirin/Kilin/Quilin. Or maybe you just want antlers or sheep horns for your centaur. It depends where you want to put the horn. 

It's popular for unicorns to sit the horn on top of your head between the ears conveniently on one headband. This is not my favorite placement. I prefer having the horn at my hairline and pointed at an angle. There are decorative headbands that give this effect but also latex and spirit gum. 
Or you can be very clever with armor or helmet design to include the horn.

You can add wings to the horse body or human body. I'll probably have a post just on wings and horns and ears. Because these things kind of deserve their own post. 

And that's it for this post. Real simple. I'm just going to leave you a few links to my favorite ear and tail shops. 

Resources 




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