I came home to find a FedEx box by my door containing this cool stuff....

I am hugely grateful to National Fibre Technology for providing me with beautiful fur for my lion. If you are new to 'NFT' they are a company based in Massachusetts America that specialise in producing specialised, custom-made fur and fabric for TV, theatre, film and artisans around the world. http://www.nftech.com/

I spent days researching fur suppliers. I considered many options from fur transfer, buffalo and camel hair, synthetic craft fur, and many others, none of which presented the perfect creative solution. Obtaining natural fibre is particularly tricky, with the additional challenge of cleaning and preparing the raw hair before knotting or layering. Synthetic fur is the obvious alternative but frequently the colour length and density are unrealistic.

NTF provide fur of all lengths colours and custom specifications to match the maker’s needs. They are a pleasure to work with. They quickly sent me out fur samples to match my reference photographs. The quality of the fur is unparalleled and it has a good stretchy base that makes it easy to manipulate around complex forms. I applied my fur with Copydex glue and then used the excess fur to punch and blend into the lions face.