The Making of a Bear Costume

What do several yards of faux fur, margaritas and sewing machines all have in common?
They are all needed to make a bear costume.
I wasn’t surprised when Biceps had this unusual need for his band’s video. Nor was I surprised that my brother would be wearing tighty-whiteys and extracting a fish from the river with his teeth in said video.

This is all very normal in the Greiman household.
(I haven’t even delved into the numerous amount of sock puppets I made for their first video. Another day, my dears…another day.)

Baby brother made the head from chicken wire, plaster of paris and a hard hat. Yep, a hard hat.
We then covered it in a faux fur they found online. The fur really flew. Literally. It was all over my house.

Baby brother also made the nose and teeth from modeling clay, baking them in the oven.
He hand painted the nose a glossy black and yellowed the teeth to make them as realistic as possible.
Cowboy did not like this bear head one bit.

Sister-in-law and I cut up an old sheet to simulate the fur, padding Biceps’ body in the appropriate places to try and make him look more bear-like.
He was thrilled with this procedure, as you can tell. I think he was just trying to get into character.

The boys made margaritas while Sis and I began sewing. Have you ever tried shoving 2” thick fur through a sewing machine?
It’s fun.

Sis got really into being a bear, modeling the arms for all of us with many bear-type dance moves such as this one.
I believe this dance is called, ‘Showing your bear biceps to the other bears.’

Biceps is wearing one of the bear legs as a skirt. Boy, am I going to be in big trouble for this.

We used an old man onesy (jumpsuit) underneath the costume to attach the stuffing to. Biceps is inside the costume, sweating profusely, wearing the jumpsuit covered in stuffing and underneath the 2” thick fur.
No wonder bears are grouchy.

By the end of the night, no animals or humans were harmed in the making of this bear costume. We still needed to add eyes and claws…but we decided to end on a high note and go to bed.

If you would like to see the bear costume in action, here’s the final video:
Man Vs. Man Video, Bruder
Please don’t judge our weirdness….