Made from fresh-squeezed walrus! Once again, graphic evidence that somewhere in the writing crew associated with Matt Groening’s various production companies – there is a fan of the walrus. This one’s from Futurama. A semi-interesting aside: When my son was younger and we were swimming, he’d yell out “Ride the Walrus!” and climb on my back to be pulled around the pool. I’ve only seen like 3 episodes of Futurama, but this must have been one of them. As far as my claim that someone associated with Futurama/The Simpsons is a fan of the walrus, allow me to link to my earlier post “Grand Theft Walrus!“…
Incredible Walrus mask by NorthfurDisclaimer: I am aware of this, but it may be unclear to the reader. THIS picture is not Royce – it is his mask. A smaller less clear picture of Royce is below, but I have since gotten better ones which will post in the future.
You are probably familiar with the pop-culture phenomenon knows as “cosplay” which is short for “costume play” and is a popular pastime for those folks who attend science-fiction/fantasy conventions. Basically, it’s the practice of dressing up as Anime, TV Show/Movie, Cartoon and videogame characters. Some of the costumes are very definitely home-grown and some are professional to a high degree.
There is another subculture of costume wearers out there called “Furries“. This term refers to the community of people who dress as anamorphized versions of animals, and then role-play in their “animal” form. Now beware before you Google this term, there is a strong sexual component to much of the content you’ll find at any “furry” link, and to many people, the term “furry” means those people that get off on that sort of thing.
Having said that, many of these costumes are incredible and some time ago while perusing random photos from some convention I’ve forgotten the name of, I came across this incredible walrus costume.
Royce Cobblepot
This is the costume of a character called “Royce Cobblepot”, the creation of a fursuiter from Northern Virginia. And here’s the rundown of how the entire costume was made.
Head: The hat was from Party City (a Halloween vampire tophat). The head is a light, breathable latex/spandex mix, made by the friggin’ awesome guys at NorthFur. Visit their site at www.northfur.ca !!! They do an incredible job with everything, and they are wonderful people to work with, even from a great distance. Recently, I applied eye makeup around my eyes to blend my skin in better with the mask, and I think it works well. I still need to adjust the mask for a better fit on my head, but given other matters in my life, that’s taken a lower priority at this time. 🙂 Oh yeah, the glasses are older glasses that I had, which carry a slightly different prescription, so I can still see. Body: Long-sleeved dress shirt was bought at Ross (oversized). Tie was eBay (Jeffrey Marlin series, I think). The coat is a woman’s long, heavy overcoat with tails from a thrift store. Underneath the shirt, I have layered (from bottom to top) a fake foam potbelly bought from eBay, a pillow wrapped across my chest (under the potbelly’s straps), a stretched undershirt, and the dress shirt. This hides everything nicely, but the fat distribution still looks odd and will definitely need some work later on. I also have an eBay-bought “Vote for Oswald” (from Batman Returns…The Penguin is supposed to be Royce’s long-lost brother) iron-patch on the coat, too.
Flipper hands: About half a yard of brown stretch velvet was cut into patterns that I drew up (I thought it was a crude sketch, but it worked!). A friend of mine sewed them together, and I stuck oven mitts inside, along with pieces of foam to make the flippers “puffier.” They work really nicely, I think, even if the foam needs to be redistributed occasionally. 🙂
Pants: Oversized trousers I found at a thrift store, that fit perfectly with the “fat.” 🙂 However, I need to use suspenders (thrift store again) for safety. The problem is, my shoulders are not broad enough to make sure the suspenders stay on…so dancing or moving wildly can cause them to slip and…*blush* They also are not long enough, so I am currently using “Napoleon Dynamite moon boots” to cover the bottom part of the leg. Spats are in the works.
Feet: Basically big swimming flippers that are snug on my feet (with socks, not barefoot). I cut out two large parts of stretch velvet from the rest of the yard that I bought, with a hole which which to put my foot in. After putting duct tape over the “hole” where the toes come out of the flipper, I covered the flipper with the fabric, then used Perfect Glue 1 (Liquid Nails brand) to glue the edges of the fabric to the bottom of the rubber flipper. THEN, I cut out a thin beige Wal-Mart car floor mat (had to use two separate pieces and “jigsaw” them on the flippers), used a toenail clipper to get rid of all the pegs, and used a 3M spray glue (I forget which kind, but it was COLD) to sandwich the fabric between the flipper and floor mat. I made sure to hold them in place for a whole day, and they seem to have held up perfectly since. Only time, dancing, and much more wild action will reveal how strong they REALLY are, but so far, they’ve been working wonderfully.
Breaking News Update! Between the time that I started this post, and now, who should randomly post a comment on this site but Mr. Royce Cobblepot himself! I was thrilled to get a comment from a “celebrity”, and rather surprised that he should have stumbled across this site when I was literally in the process of writing about him. I’m hoping he’ll agree to a short five-questions interview, and if so I’ll post the results along with links to some videos of Royce in character and in action.
Breaking News Update Update! Royce has kindly agreed to an interview, and commented profusely on the blog! If things remain on schedule, the interview with Royce will post around October 1st or before. Stay tuned. Spread the walrus word and tell your friends about the World Wide Walrus Web!
Despite what you may have heard, walruses do NOT say “Koo Koo Ka Choo” although you wouldn’t know it by the frequency at which that phrase is posted to Twitter. In actuality, a walrus sounds a little like “Chewbacca” from Star Wars or more accurately, the other way around. Walrus make a variety of grunting and whistling sounds, they do NOT bark like sea lions. Hear and see for yourself
“Walrusman” was one of the characters in the cantina scene in the Original Star Wars (that’s Episode IV, youngsters). You may not think you remember him, but here’s a clue. He’s the guy who confronts Luke at the bar and ends up getting his arm cut off by Obi Wan Kenobi. “Walrusman” is a nickname, which may well have been coined by Kenner for purposes of naming their action figure. According to online sources, the character wasn’t given a name, species and backstory in the Star Wars universe until 1989. Officially his species is “Aqualish” and the character’s name was “Ponda Baba”, but I’m just glad we have a walrus tie-in with Star Wars here on the blog.
Wanna profess your love for the tooth-walkers and still maintain your hip indie street cred? This shirt might do the trick. No one will mess with this walrus!
Voodoo Walrus T-Shirt Design
The Voodoo Walrus is a webcomic, which according to their site (and my experience) has “nothing to do with walruses and very little to do with voodoo, the design still remains surreal and iconic in its randomness.” Note that the Voodoo Walrus webcomic is an adult-oriented affair. This doesn’t necessarily mean “adult” in the nudity and cursing sense, but you don’t want to call the kids over…
I’ll look for some more info and maybe pictures related to this story. Hopefully, the coming winter will rebuild some of the ice, but it looks like bleak times for our friend the Pacific Walrus….
A new federal report today finds there’s a 40-percent chance that the Pacific walrus, a species imperiled by loss of sea ice due to global warming, will be on a pathway to extinction by the end of the century.
Global warming, regardless of your political position on the issue, or whether it represents a (geologic) short-term change or a long term shift in the planet’s climate, is a serious threat to all cold climate large animals, particularly our beloved Walrus and the polar bear.
So I’m over at my girlfriend’s house the other night, checking out all the kids books she has on her bookshelf to see if there’s anything notable that I might want to snag for my son. Lots of random titles, lots of ones I knew and had read already, classics such as The Phantom Toolbooth – and then I came across a title that knocked me back full two steps!
Very Worried Walrus – part of the old Sweet Pickles series. It’s about a Walrus who uh… worries a lot. Didn’t see that coming did you?
First of all, I totally remember this series, since I was 11 years old in 1977 and have a brother that’s five years younger – not to mention a first-grade-teaching mom who’s probably GOT this book. However, that’s not the reason that this book came as such a surprise. For that, we need a short story.
You see, most of my family gives me a hard time about being “very worried” about most things, a trait I gleefully play up whenever I can. I totally identify with the concerns of Walrus related to biking, although I admit he takes it a bit far. It should be noted that he was right about hitting a tree. So I looked at Very Worried Walrus, to paraphrase the quote, and he was me!
Or somewhere far north like that. I’ve accidentally stumbled upon the term “Igunak” in my ongoing walrus fact-exploring. What is it, you ask? Well, I’ll leave it to intrepid reporter Jackie S Quire who explains on her blog, “A Journey Northwards”
So while I never really had any interest in trying igunak… I did, unintentionally, last night… and I will probably not partake again. I tried it. Then covertly hid what was left in the pouch of my hoodie, and disposed of it in the washroom. I don’t think I fooled anyone though, haha.
