The Mokomoko

On that blog post I asked a simple question. On March 7th of 2008, I made a comment about, how you never seen a really good high quality, theater type Lord Sesshomaru costume being made. Lots of Sesshomaru costumes have been made, and most of them are really good too, so what I just said there, didn't come out sounding the way I meant it.

What I meant was, that you see a lot of costumes being made, and these vary from kids Halloween costumes, to school play costumes, to costume through together from closet items, to costumes that took month to sew, to costumes for armature theaters, to the high quality and rather elaborate costumes seen on Broadway and in fantasy movies.

The characters picked to make these costumes varies and runs into the millions, most of which being done on all levels. One of the more popular costumes in the CosPlay world, is Lord Sesshomaru, a costume that is quite advanced and takes months to make even on the simplest levels of quality and construction, but also a costume that I have yet to see attempted on the elaborate level of a Broadway or movie quality type costume.

I commented that no one did this, and received the answer more than once, that no body did this for 2 reasons: one, this costume is so advanced that no one in their right mind is even going to attempt such a feat for something they are only going to wear once; and two, until a live action movie is made, no one ever is going to attempt to make one either.

Aahh... an undoable challenge! Right up my alley! And with a character I'm crazy over to boot! You know I had to answer the challenge and go ahead and start production on the most advanced and historically accurate Lord Sesshomaru costume ever made.

And that's how this all began. I've made costumes before. I've done SCA quality historical garb before. I've done hand embroidered tapestries before. I've made hand knotted wigs for dolls before. I was a make-up consultant for 7 years. I was pretty confidant that if anybody could pull off this costume on this level, that I could. I even came to the conclusion that I could teach my self metal work and leather tooling, just so I could make historically accurate armor. I looked at the mokomoko and told myself it was no big challenge, it was just a long piece of stuffed fur.

And than I hit a stumbling block: the mokomoko. It's made out of fur. Fur is one of the things that makes a movie costume stand out from a Halloween costume. I figured I could find out where the movie people get their fur fabric and do the same.

I started asking around. Searching Google. More blog posts. Forum posts. People started answering, and it wasn't long before I learned something new: the movie people don't buy fur fabric for the fantasy movie costumes, they make it... one hair at a time, the same way they make the wigs. Each individual hair hand sewn down to a cloth backing, one hair at a time. Well, that certainly shad some new light on the detail issues I'm having with my Lord Sesshomaru costume.

While asking these questions, more and more, and in more and more places, it was quickly drawn to my attention that there are some wide and wild and many varied theories as to just exactly what the mokomoko is, and why Lord Sesshomaru has it.

I've heard theories ranging from the simply fact that it is either a tail or mane or a pelt to some more detailed theories on it being a magic weapon or a storage thing for his powers, to some completely uncannon theories about it being a caterpillar, a pet, or an alien.

Some theories have short and simple explanations, while others go on and on. A few went on to become short story or novella fan-fics, very few are actually based on the actual words and art by Rumiko herself.

In seeing how there are so many variations on theories and beliefs regarding the mokomoko and what it is and why Sesshomaru has it, has lead me to farther examine this issue, to find out just exactly what it is, and what Rumiko herself tells us about it, in her stories.

And that is the goal of this lens: to find out what the mokomoko is, and than to brainstorm ways to make it. Of course finding out what it is, is important to the costumer, because what it is, will effect how you decide to recreate it. If it's part of his body, you would never dream of taking it off during a con, yet if you think it's not a part of his body than you'd make it removable, so you could wear the costume without it. Interesting.

Well, here's what I found out and how I'll make mine, feel free to continue in your own theories and make yours in any way that suits them.

~~EK

I had what is probably a weird thought about a wire in the tail, but a real tail would have a row of bones running down through it, I wonder if I could find a way to mimic that? I thought of this after looking at my cat and realizing that his tail has a skeleton in it.

Here is my original blog post about Sesshy's tail, this post is continuing from that one.

A real tail, actually is quite thin, just skin over bone, and the rest of it is all fur. I'm trying to go very realistic here, which is why I'm looking for such long fur, and as little stuffing as possible, because in order for his tail to be that fluffy, it's got to have some really long fur on it.

I'm thinking I should try some thick cable wire, (like for phone lines or electric fences or some other such wire of that type... a home phone cord maybe? that would mimic the vertebrae coils... not sure yet) and use a wrap and tie method of attaching stuffing directly to it (like the way a doll skeleton is made...I make cloth dolls when I'm not making costumes), and than wrap that in a fake fur, and than cover the whole thing with a real fur, that is sewn down to the fake fur.

Fake fur for the backing, yes! That'll work. I think I'm going to make it out of a fake fur, and than go over the whole thing with a "top layer" of alpaca wool. I just keep thinking about that alpaca wool I looked at at that farm, and that stuff is so perfect. The alpaca wool is about 6" to 9" long and I don't think I can find a fake like that.

It's just an idea I'm throwing around at the moment, no idea if it'll work or look the way I think it'll look or not.

I seem to have hit a nerve on a touchy subject, with my earlier post regarding making a vertebrae for a costume tail... namely for Lord Sesshomaru's Mokomoko. (which btw, I posted on a few other places as well, not just here).

aaaahhh.... I should have expected this. Anyways my inbox and my email are both telling me that fans of Lord Sesshomaru the man wearing a fur boa/shawl/pelt thing are now mad at me for referring to him as a man with a tail/mane thing. Well, if they had read my post, they would have known that I said I was a fan of Rumiko's manga version of Sesshy, not the altered anime version of him. In the manga he has a tail. In the anime he wears a fur boa some days and has a tail other days... weird.

Hey, it's a fictional character, but if people want to argue the matter than, hell I'll tell you why I call it a tail, and prove it too, but don't say I didn't warn, you... I am a writer, used to writing monstrous essaies about fictional characters before even using them in my books, and I do the same thing for fictional characters created by other writers, so here we go... let's see if I can fit this all in one post! =P

It does seem odd however, that there are folks who could say it is not a tail, considering the fact that the only way to do him any serious harm is to in fact injure his Mokomoko. When the Mokomoko is wounded and bleeding all over the place, Sesshomaru falls down paralyzed. You are gonna tell me that a fur boa is going to start bleeding or cause him pain! LOL!

The reason Lord Sesshomaru attracts more oogle-eyed, love-struck, crazed fan girls than any other Bishie boy is: his mokomoko, that big furry fluffy thing, that is the cause of so many battles and debates among his fans who fight fang and claw over what in the world a mokomoko actually is.

I once saw a fan created picture that quickly explained the fan girl obsession with Lord Sesshomaru. It was screen shot taken of Lord Sesshomaru while looking very fierce and was combined with a second screen shot of a woman "in love". Over this altered picture was the words: "Fear me, damn it!" followed by: "But you're so cute and fluffy!".

Women love furry things. Women love all things cute and cuddly. Women love all things soft and fluffy. Women go wild over men draped in fur boas. Wait, why is a man wearing a fur boa?

Of course those of you who only know Lord Sesshomaru from the TV show and not from the book, will be interested to know that while the show portrays him as a man wearing a 4 foot long fur boa, the book from which the show was based on, portrays him as a man with 14 foot long tail which he drapes over his shoulder to keep it from dragging on the ground, and yet it still drags on the ground and trails quite some distance behind him. Also in the anime it looks a bit thin and skimpy, but in the manga it's fluffiness is huge! See picture at left.

Also in the book, but not on the show, is the fact that he can only be mortally wounded if his tail is injured, which has happened twice resulting in his near death each time, again, not in the show, only in the book. (See picture below, with Sesshy and his bloody wounded tail.)

Another thing that points to the fact that the mokomoko is actually a part of his body, is the fact that when he transforms back into his natural state (that of a 40 foot tall white dog) he still has the mokomoko, which can be seen to be some sort of a lion's mane.

If you've never seen the difference between the skimpy boa of the show, than you'll be quite shocked at the sight of the monstrously huge tail of the book version of Sesshomaru.

I got to say, the original book version of Sesshy is much better than the "edited" tv show version of him that came along seven years later.

And while I'm compaaring the anime vs the manga, did anyone ever notice the difference in how the mokomoko is actually worn in one verses the other? I know, I'm completely and utterly insane for noticing details like this, but take a good look at the manga next time you read it, and than take a good look at an episode such as "Sesshomaru and Naraku Join Forces" or "Go Home Kagome" and you'll see the difference too. Check it out:

In the manga, the Mokomoko is very clearly drawn as a tail that is pulled up through his kimono, coming out the opening in the sleeve, under his arm towards the front of his chest, than thrown back over his shoulder where it than drags on down to the ground for four or five feet behind him as he walks.

In the anime, it is drawn, attached to his armor at the back, and is than wrapped forward over his shoulder to the front, where it is folded back under his arm, and tucked underneath the first loop creating a weird kind of knot sort of tying it down, than drapes down his right side, barely touching the ground.

In other words in the manga it never goes under his arm at all, nor is it looped all the way around his arm, nor is it tied in a knot. Reason? Well, have you ever tried to loop you dogs tail into a double circle or tried to tie your dog's tail in a knot? No! Of course you haven't! Why? Because a tail is slightly stiff, it can't be bent into a twisty set of loops, nor can it be tied in a knot. In the manga art his mokomoko is without question a tail, and is treated as such. In the manga it is never bent into harsh angles, never looped into circles, never tied into knots, and when it is bent, it is bent is tail-like curves that are never twisted.

Another interesting note, is the fact that in the manga it's drawn "pulled up through his kimono", an indication that it in fact attaches to his body at his but, just like a tail should. There is actually nothing in the manga to suggest that it attaches at his shoulder the way the anime suggests.

Official VIZ created Chibi art shows several different versions of Sesshomaru as a child, aged about 7 or 8 years old. The most interesting thing about Chibi art is the many ways in which they portray the Mokomoko.

Chibi art has shown him with his fluffy thing being a traditional dog-tail (the only time we ever see him portrayed as such). Baby-Chibi art has also shown us a naked Sesshomaru, and shows him as an infant with a tail on his butt, like a dog.

Chibi art has also shown it as being the mane-like mokomoko "tail thing" attached at the back of his right shoulder, which is how it's usually shown. We see this best in the Chbi-art of InuYasha and Sesshomaru as children on the beach, both wearing nothing but swim shorts, and we have a clear view of Sesshomaru with the mokomoko attached to the back of his right shoulder, looking very much like a dog's tail in the wrong place.

There is also Chibi-art of Sesshomaru in pain, when the mokomoko is being bitten by InuYasha.

One odd bit of Chibi-art shows the two brothers together when InuYasha is a baby, and Sesshomaru is using the mokomoko like an arm and cradling InuYasha with the mokomoko, leaving both his hands free.

Nearly ever piece of Chibi-art shows us Sesshomaru using the mokomoko like it was a third hand, and in every undraped picture of Chibi-art the mokomoko is always attached to his body, either at his but or behind his shoulder.

I say nearly every Chibi-art, because than again, there is at least one Chibi art showing him wearing the mokomoko like a fur stole thrown around both shoulders.

Which Chibi art do we believe as accurate? Well, since all of these are drawn by VIZ's manga-anime artists, we must than assume that they are all correct, and that Sesshomaru is a shape shifter (which we already know he is) and can put his tail where ever the hell he wants it to be and take it off should he decide he doesn't wish to wear it at all. Weird.

Sesshy's Bleeding Wounded Tail: Art By Rumiko
A fur boa wouldn't bleed!
And look at how it's pulled up through the sleeve of his kimono here...



Now, if you've read my essay on Lord Sesshomaru vs historical accuracy, than you already know the months of rigorous research that have gone into the design of my costume, and you know that I am making much more than your average run of the mill costume here.

Anyways, what my research into every single episode and chapter told me was that Sesshomaru hailed from China, not Japan, and thus his odd outfit which is more Chinese than Japanese, including his Mongolian style battle armor, complete with it's trimmings of Mongolian sheep skin. (Read my history essay if you didn't know about Sesshomaru vs China, and than read the manga and watch the anime, several times each, and pay as close attention to it as I did, and you'll see the connections as well.) Anyways, I point this out, because YES, REAL LORDS DID WEAR THESE BIG FLUFFY THINGS, so on first glances we assume that Sesshomaru is in fact wearing something like real Mongolians did, and Rumiko even said that originally the mokomoko was a part of his armor. However, being a writer myself, I know all too well, how you design a character one way, and than you start writing and the next thing you know, what was once a article of clothing is now a part of their body, as happened with Rumiko in writing and drawing Sesshomaru.

Since the creation of Sesshomaru's mokomoko, we have seen him use it a third hand to grasp, hold down, squeeze, and throw his victims. I ask you, how many shawls do you know of that can do this?

As Fluffy, (in his dog form) we see that he can be hit, hacked, chopped, mutilated, and have his arm lopped off and take it without batting an eye, even when having a sword run through his eye, and yet after all that bloody fighting, it was a mere blow to the mokomoko that sent him fleeing with cries of agony.... notice that while his clothing and armor vanishes in dog form, the mokomoko is still there and very much attached to him!

Later we see a similar fight, only he in his human form, again, blow after blow does him no harm, than a single whack to the mokomoko sends him flying out of commission, and wounds him so badly that he is now paralyzed for several days (only a few hours in the anime, but days in the original manga)...also note that in the anime he refused food from Rin, but in the manga he only refused food the first few days, while she brought human food, he took the food after she started bringing him "dog food", (which in the 16th cen, was rats). Also, much of the confusion over the mokomoko comes from the fact that the anime shows him take off the mokomoko in this episode, while in the original manga, we see otherwise: In this chapter we see Sesshomaru laying in a pool of blood, wounded and near death, because of the huge gash in the mokomoko, which is spouting blood and causing him great pain.

There are many mistakes in the anime. Due to the high rate of mistakes and mistranslations that have made their way into the anime, when in doubt, I check the original manga and go with that instead, because the manga is what Rumiko wrote and the anime episodes were made without her authorization of each episode, meaning that she didn't know what the episode were going to be until she saw them on TV just like the rest of us. In other words, the anime is an adaption of the truth, the truth being the manga, and in the manga, Lord Sesshomaru's mokomoko is a part of his body which can, and has been wounded.

I had said that we only see the Mokomoko wounded in the manga and not the anime. I now stand corrected: we see it wounded in both.

Since the writing of this info, a message was sent to me, telling me to watch Swords of The Honorable Rule and to pay close attention to the sword fight at the end. If you freeze frame and enlarge the screen, you can see a scene where Sesshy's Mokomoko is wounded in the fight. REALLY? You mean there's someone out there who pays closer attention to Sesshy than I do! OMG! Is that possible? LOL!

Well, you know me, I had to go back and watch the movie again... like I really needed an excuse right? Only this time instead of watching it on TV with a DVD player, I played it on my computer in freeze frame, picture enlarged, just as my tipper told me to do, and low and behold, they were right. There are a total of 3 frames in which the sword passes the Mokomoko slicing through it, resulting in a spray of blood that is not seen unless the picture is frozen and enlarged.

Don't believe me? Well here it is...

A special note added for those who would say the sword hit his shoulder: Look at the picture. His shoulder is some 4 inches BELOW the sword.

And ooh... look at his eyes, boy is he pissed now! That guy is so dead!

As we continue this research into the Mokomoko, we keep in mind here that Sesshomaru is a dog.

He thinks like a dog. He is the pack leader. His will is obeyed without question. Disobedience results in a swift bite from his fangs or a sharp lash of his claws. Or if you are Jaken, a kick in the head and a slam against the nearest tree followed by a few rocks thrown at your skull.

He acts like a dog. He sniffs the air in search of who to kill next. Like a scent hound he runs down his victims by chasing their scent for miles, only to be baffled when they cross a river. He stomps around the outer edge of his territory, ready to kill any offending human or demon that dared set foot in his realm. He growls and snarls and snaps his teeth at you if he doesn't like you, and believe me, he doesn't like you because he doesn't like anyone, except of course Rin, but that's another story. When he starts growling at his enemies, his mokomoko bristles up, just like a dog tail should.

He talks in a weird third person objective first person, much like one would imagine a dog would: "This Sesshomaru, commands you obey."..."It is this Sesshomaru's will that you die." Sesshomaru never uses the pronouns "I", "me", or "myself", but rather replaces them all with the phrase "This Sesshomaru". Instead of "we" he says "This Sesshomaru and Jaken" or "This Sesshomaru and Rin."

It should also be noted that Sesshomaru only speaks like this in the original Japanese books and shows; in the English translated versions they changed his words because it was thought that no English speaking reader/viewer would be able to comprehend his odd speech patterns.

The phrases "thee" and "thou" commonly show up in Third Person Objective, and the style itself is very similar to the King James Version of the Bible.

Someone who speaks in Third Person Objective talks about themselves as though they were talking about someone else and they have a tendency to not talk to, about, or with other people. They are usually completely detached from the rest of society and act and speak as though they were the only person on the planet, but also as though they were a narrator talking about someone other them themselves. They may often refer to themselves as though they were more than one person: using the word "we" instead of "me" or "us" instead of "I".

Third Person Objective is extraordinarily rare and usually only seen in people with Aspengers, Autism, Schizophrenia, or Multiple Personality Disorder. It is also seen in children who had very little contact with humans, esp if raised by a solitary and mute parent. It can not be over stressed how extremely extraordinarily rare Third Person Objective is and how very difficult it will be for your readers to read it.

And just like any dog, he has a weird over protective fetish with his tail. Touch the mokomoko. I dare you. Try it. See what happened. You die. You die before your hand even gets close to the mokomoko, and than Sesshomaru goes off stroking the mokomoko like he was soothing a crying child. Watch this guy as he walks. He's always petting the mokomoko and rubbing it against his check. When they settle down to camp for the night, Rin and Jaken splash around catching fish, while Sesshomaru sits under a tree fluffing the mokomoko.

Now, remembering that we are dealing with a dog here, think about how a dog treats it's tail. You NEVER touch a dog's tail. Touching a dog's tail is a major no-no that will lose you a finger or an arm. Dog's do not like their tails touched. Dogs are constantly preening their tails. A dog that has had it's tail docked, becomes a fierce aggressive snapper. Dogs love their tails. A dog has to trust you quite a bit and than some, before it will let you touch it's tail. Only two people are ever allowed to touch the mokomoko: Jaken and Rin, and only than by invitation. Rin and Jaken are allowed to snuggled up against Sesshomaru, when they sleep, using the mokomoko to keep them warm. Interestingly, even when Sesshomaru is angry with Jaken, has just pummeled the little frog into the ground and now not speaking to him, Sesshomaru still allows Jaken to snuggle up into the mokomoko and sleep.

And an added note, for those wondering where Sesshomaru's fans picked up his common nickname "Lord Fluffy" or why he's known as "Fluffy" when in his dog form, that was started by Jaken's comment "My lord's fur is so warm and fluffy", said after being allowed to rest on the mokomoko.

One of the things I like best about Lord Sesshomaru the Dog Demon of Death and Destruction is his long lovely fluffy tail. Call me a perfectionist, but I've never seen a Sesshomaru costume that did his beautiful tail justice.

All too often, the costume wearer just drapes a piece of fur over their shoulder as if they were wearing a shawl. That bugs me, because it's not some shawl or cape thing he's wearing, in fact he's not wearing it, because it is a part of him; it is his tail.

Yes, I know it confuses some people, the fact that he's got it draped over his shoulder, however, this is in fact his tail, which is pulled up through his kimono, exiting through an opening in the right-hand sleeve, than thrown over his shoulder, in order to keep the 8 foot long fluffy white tail from dragging on the ground as he walks.

As I said, too many costumers treat the fur on the costume as though it were a piece of clothing, and not a part of his body. As we know from the series, he uses his tail like an extra hand to grab hold of his enemies and squeeze then mush in the same way a snake would do, (I'd like to see you animate a shawl into doing that... deadly tail points! YAY!) and it can be (and has been) injured . . . hey, a cape or a shawl doesn't bleed when hit by a sword, but a tail does!

On one last note, I'll admit that, as others have said it does appear to be more of a mane than a tail. Whatever, mane, tail, some sort of weird furry fin . . . the correct word for it is a Mokomoko, but no one is really certain what that means, so for the sake of simplicity, I'll just use the word tail and leave it at that.

I hate it when costumers make a costume about a character, but don't know the character well enough to know the difference between a cape and a tail. My goal it to fix that, because I want to be as accurate as possible with this costume, and I must say that I am not having much luck yet, as finding a way to make the tail on this costume actually look like a tail is proving quite difficult, as my earlier post already stated. And so, I continue on in my search for making the Mokomo for my costume as realistic as possible and set to work at building a vertebrae to go down through the center of it, and no amount of hissy fits from miffed fans of a tailless Sesshomaru is going to stop me. :P

oh my... I wrote a novella length post! Took me over an hour to type, bet it'll take as long to read too! YIKES! LOL!

Well, I went ahead and built an inner skeleton structure for the Mokomoko just too see what it would look like and to see if it was possible to use inside a costume tail like this one, and have decided go ahead and use it. I also came to the conclusion that an 8 foot Mokomoko is not big enough, and am now making it 12 feet long instead.

Here's how I did it in case any one else wants to try it:

I took a 12 foot phone/internet cable, and ran it through 8 feet of galvanized electrical conduit cable (which is quite heavy and made of metal, but is very springy and moves like a real tail.). I taped the cable in place to the conduit so that the ends meet at the base, but the cable is 4 feet longer at the end.

My next step was to wrap the entire thing in polyester quilt batting: first a 1/4" x 8" x 12' strip tied down with DMC crochet cotton. I tied it into a knobby look, by tying at 3" intervals.

Next I put it on, in order to measure where the shoulder line would be, than marked off a 3 foot section, and wrapped that with a another layer of quilt batting: 1/4" x 2' x 3', stuffing it with teddy bear stuffing, which is a supper soft, very squishy type of polyester stuffing. Again tying at 3" intervals.

Overlapping that section by 4" I added another layer of quilt batting, and stuffed it with only half as much stuffing as before. Again tying at 3" intervals.

From that point down I wrapped again, this time with no stuffing added.

The end result it a 12' long conical taper shape, with the first 2 1/2' left wrapped only once, so as to be able to wrap the tail, and some how attach it which I have not yet figured out how to do.

Well, that's where I am at right now. It took me just under 2 hours from start to finish.

My next step with the Mokomoko is to buy some eyelash fringe fabric, to make a cloth cover for it. That will be the base to which I will hand sew (latch hook-stitch - 4 or 5 hairs at a time, just like making a wig) real fur to, to create a real fur tail. I have yet to decide on the type of fur I'll use, but at this point I'm leaning towards Beige Alpaca Fleece. Not sure yet, how much I need to buy, if anyone has any ideas on how to convert pounds of wool into square inch measurements, that'd be nice, but I'm not sure it's possible to do that., cause looking at wool, I see that the weight varies a lot from one pelt to the next... one 5 lb pelt don't look any smaller than some 10lb pelts! I guess I'll have to buy it by sight rather than weight and hope I buy enough.

Yesterday I bought 2 1/2 yards of 60" acrylic silky furry fleece, in ivory, which I cut in half and than sewed to the inner skeletal structure, via a wrap & sew method. This means that I am now more than half done with the Mokomoko! YAY! Oh it is so soft and fluffy now. If I wasn't so wound up over accuracy I could actucaly leave it as is and call it finished. However, this fur has a 1/2 staple, not nearly long enough for Sesshy's luxuous tail, so this is only a backing for the real outer layer, for which I am going to use a mix of Alpaca, Merino, and English Leicester wools with 6" - 12" staple and oodles soft hand. For these wools I'll have to sew the fur down to the backing one hair at a time, just like making a wig, so it'll take me a few months to finish this part of the Mokomoko, and when I am done I will have a beautiful 14 foot long tail.

My wool arrived yesterday an it has caused me to revise my plans. If you have read everything on this lens, than you know that for the past couple of months I was considering alpaca wool for this project. However, as you will also have read, I was inspired by the fur lining of my coat and I was looking for a wool that matched it.

A sad fact of the fashion industry is that contents are never clearly marked on the label. A blouse marked as "cotton" could be calico, gauze, batiste, canvas, velvet, or denim! That is how my coat is labeled "Mongolian Sheepskin". Well for starters the coat is not actually made from a skin, so we know that's wrong. The wool lining, is made of sheared wool. It does not even tell us that it is made of wool!

Well, my problem with making the Mokomoko has been from day one, that I wanted the same wool as the lining on my coat, which btw is a super soft, super fluffy 6" cream colored pile, with a "twisted" kinky "dreadlock" texture to it, with each lock curling into natural sausage curls. This is what I was looking for. This is what I searched high and low for. I even took the coat with me to show it to people so they knew what I was talking about.

Everyone I asked told me that my best bet was to get a fake fur, because they had never seen a real sheepskin with fur that long. Everyone pointed out that sheepskin had a short pile of 3" - 4", not this 6" - 12" shag that was lining my coat. No one was able to identify the breed of sheep which grows these long curly locks. That was what I wanted to know: What breed of sheep has wool like this, so I can find a farmer willing to sell some? I suppose a sheep farmer would have known the answer, but around here everyone raises cows and chickens. Maine has lots of milk and eggs, not much wool. Maine does has lots of alpacas, however... there are over a dozen alpaca farms right in the local area! So, I gave up my search for this super long wool and set out to looking at alpaca wool instead. Until today...

As you may or may not know, depending on which of my blogs you read, this past month, I started buying wool samples, so that I could get a close up look at different wools and see how they would work for this project. I've been buying this stuff off eBay, in small batches, because I don't trust my monitor to show me the colors and textures properly, and also, because I want to feel the softness and hand of the wool, before I buy large batches of it.

Another thing is... I'm allergic to most wools, my wool lined coat is the only article of wool clothen I own, because it's the only article of wool clothen I have not had an allergic reaction too! The Mokomoko is 14 feet long and will be wrapped around me and in contact with 65% of my body... I can't afford to have an allergic reaction to something I'll have wrapped all around me from head to toe like this...my NOT being allergic to the wool I use to make the Mokomoko, is a really SERIOUS consideration for me, and another factor in why I was looking high and low for a match to the one type of wool I've never been allergic to.

Well, as I said, my wool arrived, and I can't believe what I have found: an exact duplicate of the wool which lines my coat... those very same super soft, super fluffy 6" - 12" "twisted" kinky "dreadlock" curls, so soft to touch and oooh, I'm not allergic to it! YAY!

I now know that what I was looking for was the wool of a White Cotswold Ram. It is so unbelievably perfect! So the wool that the fashion industry sells under the name of "Mongolian Sheepskin" is actually Costwold Fleece.

My Mongolian Lord can real have Mongolian Sheepskin now!

Okay, so now I know what type of wool to buy, next step is to figure out how much to buy.

My wool came last night...took 2 hours to separate the locks and 6 hours to wash it! I am now waiting for it to dry so I can start sewing it. I am writing this while I wait.

I have to figure out how much wool I will need to cover a 14 foot long tail for a demon lord. To do that I must determine how much tail area the wool I bought will cover. Keeping in mind here that wool shrinks, which it did, when I washed it.

Me and Buddy (my 13 years old blond Cocker Spaniel... see picture at right --->) spent 2 hours sorting the wool. Buddy loves the smell of it. I think he thinks I've brought home a new pet for him. He loves it when a new animal joins our farm. Buddy plays "mother hen" to all of them.

For this project sorting the wool involved separating it by locks. Each individual lock equals one 6" to 8" long tight curl and a pound of wool has maybe 400 of them. A rough guess because I didn't bother to count them as I separated them. In order to make the fur fabric for Sesshy's tail, I will be sewing each lock one at a time to a backing fabric, thus the need to separate each lock from the fleece. And that is how I spent my afternoon: carefully separating locks.

I started at 2PM and ended at 5:30PM. The next hour was spent laying the locks out in a row side by side for 3 feet, than over lapping each row after that. When all the locks were laid out (deeply overlapping, as they will be sewed down to mimic the fullness of a real fur line), I had 7 rows covering an area 1 foot deep and 3 feet wide.

My final conclusion? I will need a minimum of 12 pounds more to complete the Mokomoko. I will buy 15 pounds "just in case". Happily Cotswold is about half the price of alpaca, meaning my Mokomoko is only going to cost $200 - $300 and not the $500+ I had previously estimated.

I need at least 15 pounds more wool to make the Mokomoko... that means it's going to weigh 15 pounds + 10 pounds for the inner skeleton, that means it's gonna weight a minimum of 25 pounds.. . and the weird shape of it, it's not gonna be easy to wear either.

hhhmmm, and the battle armor isn't going to be too light either.... 30 pounds at least... this is going to be a heavy costume.

And hot, wool is hot, it traps and holds in heat, wonderful for wearing in the winter, and I plan to wear this to a convention during the summer... I must be crazy.

Good thing I'm very strong and can lift that kind of weight! most girls my size can't lift the things I can... :) comes from being a farmer, the heat however, that may bother me.

I came on here to update my lens, but found myself spammed with a ton of nasty comments. :( Fifteen of them! I feel compelled to write this now instead. Well, in spite of the fact that the book is rated T-16 and the show is rated M, both being for older teens and adults only, I have strived to keep my lenses about Sesshomaru G rated. Squidoo requires us lensmasters to delete all swear words, flaming, and vulgar language, off any lens rated G. The only way Squidoo would allow me to keep the vulgar comments on my lenses' guestbooks, would be if I change my lenses to "Adult Rated" lenses. As I said, in spite of it being an adult rated show, I've kept my lenses about it G rated and have no plans to change them to adult rated, so all of the vulgar mouthed comments have had to be deleted.

...on a better note, them tearing my costume making how to lens apart resulted in 210 visits to my site in 6 hours time! OMG! Many of those visits are coming in from a forum I've never heard of before too, so apparently my raging flamer posted something on that forum after attacking my lenses.

I think Sessho's fangirls forget he is a fictional character... YIKES!

I had no idea Sessho's fangirls were so crazy. I mean, yeah, I'm a girl and yeah I'm a rabid fan of Sessho, so yeah, I'm one of his crazed fangirls too, but man oh man, I would never go onto someone's guestbook or blog and start spewing out vulgar flames of hatred, because I disagreed with them about some aspect of the way they were making a costume! OMG!

If there is this much fighting going on now, what will it be like once my costume is finished I wonder? Raging FanGirls are SCARY! OMG! There are so many people who hate what I am doing! Now THAT is freaky! I actually had to delete some pretty nasty comments.

OMG! All I'm doing is sewing a costume... you'd think I just killed the guy! *adds picture of dieing Sesshy... there... happy?* :) Actually... I LIKE that picture... I'll go add a bigger version of it. ]:)

oooh! I forgot to tell you, was so wound up over all the mean, nasty comments I had to delete yesterday, that I forgot all about it... I finally got the wool sewn up on my Mokomoko, it's all brushed out and looks like a real tail. Looks like a fox tail, only really long.

I ran out of wool so it's not done yet, but I'm buying more this week, so I'll be done soon. YAY!

Put away sewing before going to bed. Or get up in morning, trip over 14 foot long tail, step on pin brush and fall on spool of thread. Well, that was how I started my day, how about you?

......