I get fairly regular requests regarding quadsuit construction. So I was revamping Toby's head this weekend and snapped a few photos of my set up.

* I use a softball(?) helmet. I original had a bike helmet but it was impossible to make fit tightly or comfortably since those are designed to just sit on the top of the skull. This one surrounds the whole head.

* bungee cord attached to the back of the helmet. It gets attached to a harness so I can use my legs to support some of the weight without affecting my range of movement. Without this, the head is too heavy to make it reasonable to wear.

* The goggles are called MyVu. They are charged via USB (it's not hard to find a laptop at a furry convention lol) and have an internal battery that lasts 4-6ish hours. The camera is just a basic small colour camera.

* There is a battery pack for the camera (I used to run the googles off it too before I switched to this more comfortable brand of goggles) with a splitter off it.

* If I remeber correctly, the wiring goes like this camera <- battery pack splitter -> jack to Male AV (RCA) cable -> Female AV cable (provided with the goggles) -> goggles

* The camera is in the forehead (I'd prefer nose but Toby's pig snout did not allow for that). If you are only going to conventions the field of view can be lower to see obstacles on the floor. If you are taking it out into public (or going without a handler) then keep it more horizon level or you'll spend all day looking only at people's groins and you'll have a harder time knowing what's going on around you.

* The battery pack velcros into a pocket in the padding at the back of the neck to make it easily assessable for taking the batteries in and out for transport.

* The AV cables are all wound up and zip-tied to the top of the helmet inside the head (not visible in the photographs).

* The controls/USB input to the goggles are attached to the outside of the helmet where they can be manipulated but are out of the way. The goggles are left dangling with enough play to be easy to put on but not so that they get in the way when putting on the costume.

* All of the connectors are glued into place so they do not pull out when I am wearing the costume beacuse I cannot really fix it while trying to stay in character :p

During the FC parade I did end up losing my video feed right before the group photo. It came back later so I suspect I just sweated so much that something shorted out from the humidity. But considering I was getting close to dangerously exhausted by that point, I don't think I'll bother tracking down the problem connection. With more moderate use it'll likely be fine.