Creature Suit Analysis - Part 1 - Fur

[Guest Crowlogic]

Bill I think this is the skin movement on the uypper chest you are refering to. It shows a significant amount of stretch and rebound.

Edited May 17, 2008 by Crowlogic

[Guest tiger66]

I apologize if this is a bit off-topic and doubly apologize if it's been discussed before, but seeing the sequence Crow Logic posted raised a question in my mind I'm not sure I've had before.

It seems in many of the reports I've read, people describe these animals being covered in hair instead of fur. The reason for that I believe is the length and look of it (someone correct me if I'm wrong). Most of the reports I've read seem to indicate hair in the range of several inches, sometimes 4, 5, or even 6 inches in length. I'm sure there are reports of shorter hair or even fur, but it seems collectively to me there is an overwhelming trend towards hair of significant length.

What I see when I watch the Patty footage is something that I would lean towards calling "fur" instead of "hair". Granted, there's not much I can say with authority given the pixel resolution of the digitized clips, especially regarding the "look" of it, but the length certainly seems short enough that I would not be inclined to call it "hair" but perhaps instead "fur".

I'm not bringing this point up because it changes my mind in either direction regarding the veracity of the film (I'm still on the fence), but merely because it interests me. What are others' views on hair length in sighting reports? Is there a trend for female bigfoot (in reports where it was obvious to the observer due to breasts) to have shorter hair, which could be construed as fur (or really is fur)?

Thanks in advance for any feedback and thanks to Bill for the great analysis!

[Bill]

Crow;

"Bill I think this is the skin movement on the uypper chest you are refering to. It shows a significant amount of stretch and rebound."

You are correct, in that the part you mentioned is what I was referring to.

Usually, in a suit, the fur goes fully around the upper arm in a continuous fashion, like a sleave of a shirt, so the same material should be on the bicep area flowing into the pectoralis region of the chest as we would expect to see over the tricep area flowing into the Lats of the back. That isn't what the film looks like to me. The area of the bicep flowing into the chest almost seems like bare skin, and the contour line down the arm, following the upper arm bone (dividing the bicep from tricep areas) seems almost atrophied a bit, and I have no recollection of ever having seen a suit which had that feature. Suit arms tend to be more consistantly convex in their curvature, with no distinction between the bicep and tricep masses of the arm.

Bill

Added:

Tiger66:

Guess you were posting while I was writing.

"What I see when I watch the Patty footage is something that I would lean towards calling "fur" instead of "hair". Granted, there's not much I can say with authority given the pixel resolution of the digitized clips, especially regarding the "look" of it, but the length certainly seems short enough that I would not be inclined to call it "hair" but perhaps instead "fur"."

The terms "hair" and "fur" are sort of vaguely defined, because it literal fact, fur is composed of a mass of individual hairs.

In terms of usage, I suppose people could use either term in many instances. Like on a horse, we talk of hair, even if it's "winter coat" can be furry. It seems with some animals, our culture has simply gotten used to the term "fur" like bear fur in the Kong discussion, but with humans and many primates, we still use hair. We usually don't refer to an urangutan as having fur, but hair.

So there's lots of debatable room in using those two terms.

The film's figure does have what I personally would judge to be an apparent pelt or fur covering, which is why suits with long shaggy "hair" (the easier type of suit to hide flaws and seams) tend to be more readily appreciated as fakes.

Bill

Edited May 17, 2008 by Bill

[Guest Skeptical Greg]

Bill I think this is the skin movement on the uypper chest you are refering to. It shows a significant amount of stretch and rebound.

I love that animation, it highlights a significant problem with the skin movement in the upper chest ..

In this frame I have pointed to the lump that would be part of the upper pec .. ( which in real life would extend down under the breast structure )

It is clearly moving in sync with the arm as you would expect it to in these two frames..

However, you can see there is a line of separation that moves between the lump and the breast below .

Clearly showing the underlying structure is not continuous the way the muscles in that area would be..

This animation is great for seeing how the upper arm padding is disconnected from the shoulder, and also the

upper thigh from the pelvis..

Notice how fabric above bulge on the upper thigh subducts uder the fur diaper..

[Bill]

Greg:

Interesting animated gifs you posted. Thank you for the contribution.

I went back to the full sequence I have in my computer, and watched those areas. The motions do, of course, look different in a full continuous sequence, but they are curious elements worth further consideration.

Bill

[Guest Monkey's Uncle]

What interests me is the movement of the right leg knee cap which appears to me to "float" (my description) naturally up and down. I don't see how a "loose fitting" animal skin can replicate that motion.

Bob H. must have had a real good tailor and/or wearing spandex (was that even around in 1967). If Roger Patterson was that good of a tailor he wouldn't have been a broke cowboy.

[Bill]

Monkey's Uncle:

In the notes, Part 8 - Neck Hackles, on page 4, post #98, there is a full description of spandex development you may like to read.

Part of it is as follows:

"Spandex was introduced in 1958.

It was used for undergarments and hose.

It was not used by a sporting team until 1969. (French skiers.)

Then it came to general use in sporting goods in the 1970's.

It was fully introduced into general outerwear fashion by the 1980's.

Reid-Meredith Wig Co was started in the late 1950s. A Patent for hair fabric

was granted in about 1962.

Hair fabric blanks were bought buy FX people starting in the 1970's, but

these where made on a 2-way knit backing. (Give but no return.)

It was not until about 1981 that Spandex was introduced to the hair fabric

process.

It was developed by Hair Technology (now NFT) for Henson and Disney.

So 2 way stretch fur was available in the 1960's but true 4-way did not come

about until the 1980's."

The source of this info is the current owner of the company which developed stretch fur for the industry

Bill

[Guest mythusmage]

Notice how fabric above bulge on the upper thigh subducts uder the fur diaper..

That isn't fabric, she was chubby. You get the same look, the same movement with fat people. The next time you're down at the beach this summer, observe the chunkier folks around you. You'll see much the some sort of thing, without the fur.

[Guest BigfootXists]

I love that animation, it highlights a significant problem with the skin movement in the upper chest ..

Sorry but, I definitely don't see your point Greg. For one thing, I was thrown off immediately by your use of the word 'animation'- which, if it could possibly pertain to the PGF, could only do so in the context of the definition: Animation -the creation of artificial moving images. That, obviously, does not apply here. Patty, whatever it is, or was, really moved.

BFX

[Guest Skeptical Greg]

The referenced image is a .gif animation, compiled from frames of LMS DVD ..

[Guest Sasquatcher]

Not in 1967.

[Guest JohnWS]

Redirected from HERE

John:

Guess I'll have to go looking through my old Cinefex archives for their issue on the film, and see what they say. They were usuallly pretty good about getting the descriptions right.

Bill

One thing I realised in reading your post above was that some of what I had originally planned to include got deleted/omitted for the sake of brevity.

A point I had intended to make is that I have not read here or the 'other place' for several months now. I didn't want to do a huge cut/paste job from several magazines, books and websites - I felt that that may have appeared as an attempt at drive-by 'point scoring'.

That's why I just referred to the process as 'well documented' rather than copy/paste etc.

[Drew]

Has there been any updates to the Munns Report?

[Bill]

Not recently.

 

There is activity, and it will be announced when it is complete. No ETA on completion though.