[OK] Gerstlauer the Gryphon by Curious Creatures

Alongside this, the ventilation is also brilliant – I can breathe very well due to the mesh eyes, movable jaw, and holes in the nostrils of the beak.

The 3D print is a bit heavy but this isn’t a problem unless I’m wearing the suit for a long time without a break, which can cause discomfort and give me a headache.

Additionally, the strap on the head when I initially got the suit was way too thin and weak to hold the print of the head base up, and it would always slip up my head causing the head to drop forwards whilst wearing it, causing pain and discomfort. I had this strap adjusted and replaced by a local maker friend, the fit is now a little better but the problem persists. I know the weight of the print is no fault of the maker’s, it’s simply due to the physics of it being a very front-heavy mask.

When I contacted the maker about this issue the day I got the suit, the maker questioned if this was an issue on my end because the suit head fit them fine. The issue was not on me, as friends and family had the same experience with the strap immediately bouncing up to the scalp and the head falling down.

Unfortunately, the base of the beak at the neck digs directly into my throat under the suit, and whilst I was wearing it at a convention this started to scratch my neck, leaving small grazes which swelled up after the convention, so I don’t feel comfortable wearing it for long, which is a real shame.

The shaving is even across all of the fur, no backing shows and the fur is very high quality. The yellow fur is a very long pile so it can look shaggy quickly after brushing, but that’s normal for the pile length.

The markings are a little asymmetrical due to the maker patterning the whole head rather than just one side and flipping it, but this is not remotely noticeable unless you really, really analyse small details.

The whiskers are made of a flexible material which glows under UV, and I haven’t had a single breakage on them.

Their smile looks very sinister which is exactly what I was going for, with small details extending the grin up to the cheeks.

The eyes are sublimated mesh, so the design looks absolutely perfect. The follow-me eyes work pretty well given the difficulty of making them work with the design.

All of the markings are present and correct, including the stripes on the ears and chevrons on the inner ears.

Unfortunately some paint has chipped off on the beak after my outing to a long convention, but I can repaint and reseal this with ease – I am just mentioning this for transparency’s sake.

I can move around just fine without popping seams, everything blends together perfectly when all worn together.

The digitigrade padding is difficult to put in without a helper, and when I asked the maker for assistance in how to put some of the tricky padding pieces in (there is a piece by the back of the ankle which is extremely tricky for me to put in due to the low placement and length of the leg fur) who wasn’t 100% sure on how to put it in without an assistant, but did suggest a workaround method, which is once again very hard for me but doable with enough trial and error, but it really extends the time it takes for me to suit up and causes me a lot of stress hoping all of the pillows hold in place while I put the suit on.

I had to remove some stuffing from the padding pillows myself, when I received them they were so heavily stuffed they were practically rigid with no pliability to them for pushing them into the correct position. Overall I had to remove roughly a carrier bag’s worth of stuffing to be able to put the suit on myself.

The padding pillows are made out of fleece with polyfil stuffing, and the fleece material used to make the pillows can cause the leg area of the suit to get very hot very fast.

All of the markings are spot on and match my reference sheet, including the small intricate details like the 7 spots on each thigh and radioactive symbol above the base of the tail.

The neck markings are on the bodysuit rather than the head, and it looks very nice when wearing the whole suit. The black and white part of the neck ruff are a longer fur than the rest of the body.

The scars on the chest are minky and look super nice.

The maker didn’t take wrist measurements from me and the wrists are quite tight because of it, but I can wiggle my hands into the handpaws gradually.

I found the best method for putting the hands on is to try to gently pull the paw pads down towards my arms and wriggle my fingers into the respective fingers in the handpaws. Due to the pads and claws this is tricky to do when not suiting with a handler or otherwise having someone to assist with the 2nd paw, but is doable with time and patience.

The scutes are individually layered pieces of minky glued on top of one another, it does add a tiny bit of weight but looks so detailed and sharp.

The giant claws look absolutely amazing, they are very foreboding and monstrous, and the pads look and feel nice.

The foam cuticles have quite apparent cuts/seams when the paws are facing with the palms towards the viewer.

The kidney belt attached to the tail counter balances the weight of the tail and it doesn’t feel heavy when being worn at all, and holds the tail in position very nicely.

The belt does up by Velcro, making it very secure, so it doesn’t move or slip around.

The foam core is very solid and sturdy without being too heavy.

The fur is super soft to the touch on the black and white areas especially – the yellow has an ever so slightly different texture to it.

The toes are foam and the resin claws are the same as the ones on the hands.

The EVA foam soles of the feet are super durable and easy to clean.

A detail I really like on the feet is the EVA foam soles are shaped like the pads of the feet, so you get the best of both worlds with the all-terrain wearability of outdoor footpaws with the beans of indoor footpaws!

Even after multiple times being cleaned, the bright yellow foam has kept its colour completely fine.