Just some long overdue construction pictures of the digitigrade stilts I made for Keimera's character Dona.

The stilts are a rigid structure consisting of bar stock. Shaping was done with a homemade bending jig, and the pieces were stick welded. The lower legs were filled in with upholstery foam to give it shape, and the bars were taped around the calf to actually strap her in.

The design isn't as slim as some that I've seen, but the natural foot position made wearing them much easier, and gave the costume a lot of height- which we wanted. The rigid structure with a flatter foot position seems to works quite well on larger characters, especially when you can afford to pad the legs a bit.


Dona completed can be seen here: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/5164188
Dona is owned by  keimeracostuming


Keimera's comments on wearing the stilts the stilts:
"As far as comfort goes, these stilts were kind of the opposite of what I expected. Balance wasn’t much of an issue once I got the hang of them, which didn’t take long. Standing was more difficult than walking, simply because my legs would get tired and moving around seemed to avoid that. Also, soft surfaces were much easier to walk on than solid ones. Carpet was ideal, though it didn’t seem to matter how thick it was. Walking was surprisingly normal. When I stepped, the stilt of my back foot would tilt up the same way your heel leaves the floor, so I would literally be balancing on one bar while in mid-stride. Because of this, I could stroll along quite quickly, since the extra leg-length exaggerated how far apart my feet would be. The fact that I was able to do this is actually rather significant. I’m very uncomfortable when it comes to being off-balance, and these didn’t bug me at all. I was even able to go up and down stairs, albeit with the help of a handrail (and a handler when the stairs were a hard surface). Ultimately, the heat of the costume got to me before the stilts made me want to take it off. So I guess the moral of the story is that they worked surprisingly well as far as functionality and wearability is concerned."