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I've sent another complaint regarding my suit. The fur is starting to fall out. T_T

So, I asked for the care instructions and "how-to" put the suit on information (for my specific suit) from Lemonbrat 2 weeks ago, the email finally arrived last night. The care instructions seem pretty generic, maybe even copied and pasted from some website online I don't know, it says nothing specifically about short, minky fur. It's not really an issue. I've asked for the material colours and the source, I said for repair reasons, but... I may have had other ideas in mind like comissioning a new suit from someone else using the same colours. I felt if I told them that, they would not have told me. Anyway, the sent me what seems to me like a really confusing image of the colours. Now, I only remembering choosing two colours. Champaign and Tawny, possibly Minky Black for my details. Now I asked them to add information on which furs where used for which parts. There are 3 shades of black alone. (I originally thought two) In total there are 7 different colours of fur listed in there email. As this is my first fursuit, I'm not sure it is normal practice, but I thought it might be worth mentioning anyway. Either I am having a really hard time understanding basic information, or communication is an really big issue. I've been at my first convention and already the fur is starting to bald in places. This is not a good sign. The zipper is constantly jamming, even when you ensure to make sure the fur is not in the way when you zip up. They've put a plastic puller on a metal zip on both the head and the back. It seems like instead of seperating the fabric and the fur, they've simply turned the zip backwards somehow - it's really strange. The zipper and fabric seem to seperate on the inside, but not where it counts on the outside. I'll provide more pictures soon. They're is no possible way to put this suit on, or get out of it without help. If you really need to get out of suit quickly in a medical emergency, be prepared to get cut out of it if you don't have a handler because it can easily take an hour just to get in and out of suit. 30-40 minutes if you really try to hurry. (impossible if you are on your own) Again, not sure if this is normal, this is my first fullsuit, but I thought my experience might be worth mentioning. [Edit: Thought it might be worth mentioning that the Fursuit Team and Security at EuroFurence, were constantly saying things like "Oh, the zipper keeps jamming, this must be a Lemonbrat suit" Just thought that might be worth noting] Camaro.

Regarding fursuit care instructions, I can offer up a few things: Washing/Cleaning -Faux fur is safe to put in the wash, but I would turn the suit inside-out first. This will give you access to the digitigrade padding, which may allow you to remove it (If you do remove it, take notes/pictures of what you removed from where, and maybe also mark the pieces with a fabric marker so that you can put them back together in the right place). -Always wash your suit in cold water. -A delicate detergent is generally ideal, but your mileage may vary. (Sometimes, carpet cleaner is the only thing that works.) Some detergents, delicate or not, don't interact well with some furs. If you have concerns and have some of the fur available fur repairs, test it on a scrap piece before using it on your suit. -If you use a washing machine, use a delicate cycle. Also put your suit into a laundry bag to prevent it from getting caught on anything. Put your paws, hand and foot, into pillow cases to keep them from getting any weird stains onto anything else. -If you're hand-washing, your tub is your friend and you can use it for soaking. Drying -Fans are helpful. Very helpful. -Do not use heat for drying. It will melt the fur. -While a lot of folks will hang up their suits to dry, the weight of the damp fur can cause stretching at the shoulders. At Con Care -Dryer sheets are super useful for quickly drying out your head and paws. Scented ones can also help combat odors. -Disinfecting sprays (water and rubbing alcohol) are your friend and will help keep your suit fresh between wears. Keep the spray away from anything airbrushed or electronic on your suit. You may also need to keep it away from the eyes, depending on how they've been made. -If you haven't, invest in some UnderArmor and a balaclava to help keep moisture away from the suit whenever possible. -Take frequent breaks and put your health at a priority over anyone else's idea of magic. Travel -Have some kind of tote for travel. Some folks have things like footlockers. Others have plastic totes. I use a hard-shell suitcase. Hope that helps with some of the confusion around fursuit care. Sorry I can't help with any of the other issues!

Gosh, the seams on the body suit are just so strangely placed.. Hm. At any rate, I came here to offer a suggestion about the tail problem. I have a tail of similar length and size on one of my personal suits and it's sewn directly into the suit. A tail of that size should cause no problem on the body suit and it shouldn't stretch the fur over time. It looks pretty light! You should also be able to wash it in a machine or tub while it's attached. For drying tho, I would suggest getting a fan not only just for the body suit but also a dedicated fan for just the tail as the tail will take much longer to dry than the bodysuit since the tail is stuffed. Otherwise there should be 0 issues here. So see what you can do about getting someone to sew it directly into the hole (or whatever the attachment thing they did is) where it goes into. You can keep the belt loops on the tail and use a belt to help keep the tail secure and transfer whatever weight it does have onto your own waist vs the bodysuit-- but you probably won't need to use a belt tbh. Just an extra measure you could take. I hope this helps and wasn't too confusing! If you have questions, feel free to reply and Ill try my best to help.

I have no horse in either of these races, but I've been following along and this is what I see: The reference images were bad. No doubt about that. Not only are the markings all over the place, but the image where shes on the hood of the car clearly has a lot larger muzzle and larger, curved ears than the more ref sheet design. If you didn't tell me that these are the same character then I wouldn't think they were. I might struggle to say they are the same species. If they were going more off the second image than the first, I can clearly see why they would use a more mousey base for the head. The ears and muzzle clearly make more sense. Honestly I would have paid for a professional fursuit ref rather than a normal character ref and some images. The less said about the lion king recolour, the better. I think there was a big lack of trust on camarofurry's part. From all the emails I have seen and read, little thought is given to compromise or actually working WITH the artist. I know you paid a lot of money, but when you commission another person for something, you need to work with them because, chances are, they know a lot better than you what they are doing. I think jumping to conclusions about the head and tail were big mistakes. The curved one is clearly more optimal for moving about in a real world environment. It might not be as true to the character as you want but, again, you need to make compromises and work with the artist. I've seen a lot of people say "Why didn't Lemonbrat cancel and refund if they couldn't do it?" but I think thats a bad attitude to have. I think Lemonbrat was confident that they could deliver what the customer asked for to start, so they agreed. By the time issues in production started cropping up the item was already 100% paid and they had spent work hours and materials on it. Lemonbrat has people and bills to pay. Its not easy to take a hit of $3600 PLUS cost of materials PLUS cost of paying the artists the hours of work wasted. By the time there were big problems, it was probably a better move financially to push ahead and try to deliver a good product. Now, the finished suit itself. There are clearly problems with it but I think its less an issue to do with poor quality work and more to do with the materials used. Lots of words have been typed about the seams and the way the tail is attached. I think we can all agree that such a big tail is going to put strain on that fabric. It needs a firm base to be attached to. It does look bad, I agree, and maybe something can be done to sort it, but I honestly think this was probably the best idea they had at the time. The fact it was being modeled by somebody shorter than the suit was designed for probably didn't help matters either. As the for the seams: They are always going to be here, regardless. The fur just isn't deep pile enough to hide them. I don't really see an issue with either them or the zipper. Its a costume, at the end of the day. Its gonna have seams and honestly I can understand why the zip is so prominent. I don't quite know what the commissioner was expecting zip wise. I don't think either side is blameless, but I think Lemonbrat was trying their best to work in a hard situation. There are always going to be difficult customers and you do your best to make them happy. I think there was a big issue of clashing ideas and both sides thought they knew better than the other. I understand why they won't give a refund for the reasons listed above, but I am glad to see they are trying to make fixes to the suit. I'm not sure what resolution would make camarofurry happy as she is clearly not getting her money back, but I hope she at least grows to like the suit once its in her hands despite the bad experience.

Naw, they really can't. That tiny chin? That's not a big cat trait, big cats have a pronounced chin. At least the flatness of the muzzle is more accurate, as is the nose, than the one Camaro got. The ears on the head also do not sit correctly for a cat on both this suit and Camaro's suit. If anything that suit says to mean the group doesn't know how to make big cat heads. And yes that's even counting cartoonish exaggeration. Fur of the type used should not have been offered to the client, that's on the Lemonbrat group, not on Camaro. Not to mention, it's clear whomever constructed with it was not familiar with the material. No work should have been done before a DTD was sent for a suit of this type. Once again, that's on the Lemonbrat group, not Camaro. None of this 'you can give us measurements but it won't be as good', there should have been a hard stop until the DTD was sent. This deadline should not have been agreed to the amount of time it took to pay off didn't give enough time to complete it. Camaro had nothing to do with how that head turned out, that all on the people that constructed it. Like I said for the lion above, there are key traits for big cats that are not present for either head. Their noses certainly aren't as pronounced like that and so separated from the muzzle. I still cannot believe you're doubling down on that tail. You made a hard S curved tail just because there was a few shots in the ref with a tiny curve in it. You know whomever did the construction went wrong on this one and you don't want to own up to it. The only thing that has not been proven or dis-proven clearly is the explicit issue with the chest. No one has provided the initial request form nor the emails related to it, to prove when or where changes were requested or made, so that's the only thing I cannot comment on. Your group has been doing this for a long time, these are all rookie mistakes that should not be happening to a group that's been around this long. And if the person doing the correspondence is not the same person that's doing the construction that needs to change.

(Sorry for the edit) They sent wips, yes, which the commissioner was unhappy with, with them trying to tell him that he should trust them on this and try to invalid his opinions on those changes. Short fur does not excuse the seams in the middle or the unclean one on the tail, nor the crooked nose and uneven ears and brows. If the maker wouldn't be able to get the suit ready, in their usual quality for a specific deadline that was stated in the very beginning, then they should decline the commission. And of course artists/makers have to adjust their prices, but! you cannot say you will not refund in any case. Never, it is illegal to do that. I feel like you are coming over very aggressively and I wonder why. The quality is the issue here, which is not discussable.

I will provide lemonbrat's email response here. Apologies for the length of this post in advance. I am sorry that I used profinaty in my response to them, but it was out of complete shock at the suit, not in anger. I was not wishing any harm upon them whatsoever. They'd only sent me images of the paws, tail and head. I had been polite and patient with them up until this point. And the new head they sent me a close up side-shot. So I really couldn't see it all that well and it looked great from what I could see of it. Here is there email, and my response. *** Lemonbrat Inc, I will respond to your points below. Your points will be in italic font. Dear Camaro, I’m sorry that you are dissatisfied with your fursuit. We have provided you with the same high-quality construction that we provide to all our customers. I really don't believe that as several people on twitter, telegram, discord and artist beware have pointed out, you're premades are a lot better quality, and you're quality has been rapidly deterioraing over the years. Previous customers of yours are coming to me with support, and tell me they'll never buy from you again, even at your stalls at conventions. We would appreciate if you would stop trying to read “in-between the lines” of our emails, as we only mean exactly what we are saying. You have jumped to a few conclusions based on speculations, which isn’t helpful for anyone and seems to be causing you more stress that is necessary. Any "suspcions" I've had, have been echoed by other people, I show them your emails and photos, and they come to the same conclusion without my influence. So I really don't know what to say here. Maybe you are right and the 200 people in my friend's discord are all wrong. Your suit has been made in a timely manner. According to our email record, we provided you fur samples on May 5th, and in the proceeding, days had a number of exchanges asking questions about the details of your order. Mid-May is thus when we began the construction process. It is from that point that the designer started to pattern and design components. She was slowed by having to discuss a number of details with you because the main reference material was not exact to what was ultimately selected. For example; the addition of black ear tips, paw pads, and claws, etc that are not shown on the main reference image. If construction began in Mid-May that's just even more embarrassing that the suit turned out so rushed looking, and you say later in your email the person emailing me, and the person working on my suit were two different people but above you said the 'maker' was slowed by discussing details with me? I gave you four reference images, and explained back in October/November when I first ordered the suit, in fact I think it was even on the ORDER FORM about the black tips on the ears, so that is complete bullshit. I sent you four references images. 3 of those images had black tips on the ears! You can't blame me for any delays of details that were stated on the order form and initial emails sent to you when the suit was ordered. Claiming that we “only started a month ago” is inaccurate. I understand that you don’t see our day-to-day workflow. By the time we are sending images of a carved head and sewn together components, there has been A LOT of patterning and development. We simply cannot show WIPS of every single second of production. It was your STAFF that LED me to believe the suit construction started only a month ago. So if you started sooner, then that's not my issue. It's a communication fault (which you already partly admitted to) by your trainee person on the email system. You seem to be confused that the person who answers the emails is the same who carves heads / does other design work. I'm not the one confused about this, above you stated they were the same person, that the maker was in communication with me? We would like to clarify that the designer and seamstress working on the costume have spent 4 years with this company and are certainly not inexperienced. The most “green” person on the team is the one who was initially answering your emails who has been on the team for more than a year at this point. If this is true, that's embarrassing. If my company made me rush a product so much it looked really bad that would crush my spirit, I feel really bad for your seamstress right now. Every time you have responded to our WIPS with displeasure, we have responded within a day or two, offered corrections, and then made those corrections in order to meet your specifications. We have re-carved a head, remade a tail, made adjustments to the bust, remade the ears - all to try to achieve your vision as it changed throughout the process. When you responded saying you did not like the zipper and tail installation we also, immediately responded and offered to make adjustments. You didn't make 'adjustments' in my view, you 'corrected' really horrible mistakes. How do you explain making a mouse head for anthroporphic cat? The head should have been done from scratch, your adjustments made the head look wierd around the nose and mouth. But I was happy with that, then I saw the huge seem on the back. My fursuit looks like it had an autopsy for god sake! On April 1st you told us you were, “having trouble finding someone to do the DCD [sic] with me would something like [provided measurements] be okay?”. We agreed to accept the measurements with the caveat that we cannot guarantee exact fit. This was explained to you on April 2nd, which you agreed to. Your DTD would have been draped as soon as it came in, we could have easily started when you hit your 75% payment mark in February if we had had it. However, having to work with measurements is a much trickier process that has to be specially done by our top designer. Also, you waffled several times on how you wanted the bust to be made, from “speedbump” at the beginning, to two breasts (see your July 2nd email), to wanting the speedbump again on July 19th which caused us to have to pull the bodysuit from production in order to comply with the requested adjustment. This is not true, I asked for a speedbump and your Email person/ designer whatever they are, you can't seem to decide, said they could do breasts too. I asked for some time to think the options over and asked for speed bumps, so this is completely false. I have said not once, not twice, but three times that breasts would be UNSUITABLE FOR A CONVENTION AREA but your designer kept trying to push them on me. SOME CONVENTIONS HAVE BANNED THEM OUTRIGHT. I explained to your maker that I would provide measurements and send the DTD the next week, as I had someone to help me, oddly enough you left that out of your point, even though it was sent only a couple days later. You initially told us you wanted the suit in July for an August due date. It is unfortunate that your suit has run a few days overdue, but it’s extremely hard to keep on-time with so many changes and adjustments. Again your maker set the deadline for Mid-July, I was happy to wait past EF, maybe until christmas, but your maker or email guy, whatever the hell you want to call him, set that date not me, a date that you keep implying that I set, that is not true!! I asked repeatedly between February and April if the deadline was okay, because I could wait longer, but needed to know in advance because I had to make extra arrangements and pay extra for flight allowance if my suit was going with me. I asked if possible, could the suit arrive before August 12, but if not then it would be fine. So don't put the blame of the deadline on me its something you guys agreed to, and I gave you many opportunities to extend and you refused. We feel you supplied a reference image that doesn’t match your mental image of the suit but have still held us to the standard of what is in your head. There’s a reason why commissioners (us included) ask for accurate reference images and any specific preferences up-front (as you could have done from day 1 in our quote form) in order to avoid a tremendous amount of edits and back-and-forths in the production process. Again, I put the [intricate] details on the order form, including the ear markings. You seem to have a serious issue with communication and keeping paperwork in order. We feel that we have worked very hard on your suit, we have complied with every edit you requested, and are still willing to make the zipper and tail adjustments if you so choose. You are ineligible for a refund. As per our policies, we do not offer refunds on custom items, and that has been the case in our TOS for 4+ years. Time, effort, and money were spent making it, and re-making it to your specifications. Being disappointed with it at this stage and demanding a refund after all this work is placing an unreasonable burden on us as we have worked hard to make a good faith effort to create your fursuit in accordance with your preferences. Would this be the same TOS you changed earlier this year? The same TOS that changed the 75% mark to 100% and changed your refund policy to "within reason, minus labor and materials to..." "No payments shall be refunded" It's not been the same for four years, and your own emails to me proove that. It's a blatant lie. I have the email that says, and I quote "You will be bound to our old terms, as your suit was paid off before the TOS changed" my suit was paid of in April, so that means your TOS changed in April 2019, and thus has NOT been the same for the last four years. [ note - was not in email but lemonbrat changed there TOS in 2017 from no refund, to the policy I saw in 2018, they then changed it back in April? 2019 ] Please let us know if you would like the zipper and tail adjustment. I am very angry by the attitude and accusations you have made here, I would advise you make the adjustments to the tail and zipper only if it will not damage the suit further. Because honestly there are a lot of people, who agree that this suit is just embarrassing to your company. It's gonna hurt your business more than it's going to hurt me. Once you have finished making mistakes, I would really appreciate my suit being shipped by FedEx International 5-day like you promised. Regards, Camaro Cougar

Let me preface I have a small bias AGAINST Lemonbrat or well a member of the group persay from when they did cosplay commissions. I did not participate in the approval and I tried to stay out but there is too much here to be quiet. I did participate in the agreement to go from Caution to Beware due to witnessing LB literally obliterate timeframes. OP would never receive the suit in a timely manner due to location, international shipping and customs by the time they finished it. This suit ideally should have been finished and gone to OP by the first week of JUNE. To me that's the latest because even if you rushed the shipping customs is a pain. My next concerns: The tail. Neither tail I saw read 'feline' to me. Even if you are making a puma to fit a human figure, the size ration is off. And that closure is awful on it. It visually looks stapled or tacked on like Eeyore's tail. The head is rodent and even furred up, it's a rodent with feline coloring. The ears are the worse of it. They are too round and ill-shaped for a feline. They splay out when they really need to point upwards. Choice of fur. OP came to you for the service. You have the knowledge (or should) of how their choices would perform. It's a beautiful color but it obviously doesn't do full body justice. At best a partial. And I say this as someone who only interacts with suits via this community! EVA Foam and worbla are my thing. The choice to cut literal pecs into the front. They're uneven. I don't think you even picked seams on the chest (or any of it), and I quickly Googled fur tutorials for fashion; all say pick your seams to clean up the work. If the OP wanted a femme form without actual breasts, was light stuffing or gentle foam fabricated mounds not an idea? I hate to say it but that chest looks post-mastectomy which if that's what they want; grand. But I don't think it was. Lastly because this is very long: communications and policies. You think you're allaying fears but you were telling OP to deal. Bad move. Also why would you not stick to your guns of a full DTD? Pick a policy and stand by it. If you want to deliver quality, demand a DTD or cancel and refund. 3k is too much damn money to bet on someone not local's measurements! LB you owe OP either a functional appealing suit. A refund. Or just a partial refund (50%) and the suit so they can... try to save it. Your own choices and lack of confidence/customer service/timekeeping lead to this. Less PR statements and more communication with Camaro.

ITT: People defending awful work. Also, I thought this part of Lemonbrat's defense was pretty funny: Sorry, what? If this is what Lemonbrat considers an average sample of their suits, then I dread to think what they would consider a 'botched' suit. Because this is a budget suit AT BEST. Not worth 3.6k. The head looks nothing like a feline base and as 'professionals' Lemonbrat should have known that fur would not magically make the head into a feline's. This one spins me out a bit because it's so obvious.

I would also like to add, with the excuse about that type of fur material. I looked at the twitter post about this suit, and someone posted a suit they have made from the same/similar material. It looks good and not super wrinkly, NOTHING to the degree of awful that this suit is. I really feel I should point this out and say it's not the material, this is overall just bad quality.

So, first off, you filed this artist beware dating it 12/12/2018 however your first payment was in december of 2018? you state it was late 2018 that the problems occured, however its only recently that problems have developed second, you have started a gofund me prior to resolving it with the seller. third you understand do to the lion king ref you have to modify the suit due to copyright. fourth short pile fur is gunna show everything, and depending on body size and type its fitted as close to you as possible. fifth you are crying foul and rallying people to a cause because you are not happy trying to get a refund and gofund me is a double standard. according to your monthly payments it seems like you had to take time to pay for it then have it rushed for a international con??? sixth before acting like an entitled and expect VIP treatment it seems theyve done theyre best to accommodate you and work with you. 7th the cost of materials has risen so high do to the US's current trade tarrifs that materials ezpecially synth furs are 15-25% higher so its obvious sellers will adjust and protect themselves both in TOS and cost. ALSO i feel like you are not divulging all the information regarding this issue?

This item has been upgraded from a Caution to a Beware given the suit's construction flaws and the fact that it is unlikely to meet deadline. Currently, there are three emails in queue to be added to the post, but we are waiting on Camaro to supply a few more concerning the DTD and the fur selection. Please note: Users do not have the ability to edit their own posts, so we're doing our best to keep it updated.

So I've gotten a suit from Lemonbrat and they have been nothing but kind and courteous and prompt with their responses. This to me looks like buyer's remorse. The images you provided make it seem like you were contacted in March about your due date and work had started on the suit in June. Which you received wips for. Where are the rest of the emails from them? In order to clear the air I would provide them. Tmk Lemonbrat doesn't make changes unless it's requested by the customer. They send wip pictures and you need to approve them before more work is done on the suit. They have their customers choose the fur colors, they even send swatches. So that's on you. The fur looks like short pile fur, maybe sable or seal, it wrinkles. It's gonna happen with shorter furs. You're going to see seams unless you're using lux or another long pile fur. Lemonbrat has a team of people who work on these suits, I have met several of them and they're always super friendly. You sound like an awful customer. You provided a ref from the lion king first off. You need consistent reference images. Looking at the main one the tail is curved. Have you seen a big cat like a panther? Their tails naturally have a curve so they don't drag on the ground. I don't see the airbrushing you speak of, to be fair I see absolutely nothing that would suggest it was airbrushed at all. It all looks like fur and shadows of fur in the images.

Camaro is currently sending us more emails to update this post, but I did want to drop in and just leave my opinion. Like I know this fur is naturally really wrinkly and hard to hide seams in, but they should have been up front this would be an issue. And that doesn't even account for the fact that the profile still looks rodent like. Plus there's this strange overlap of the light fur on the upper eyebrows that hide the actual eyebrows. I'm not sure what's going on there, but once you see it it's hard to unsee it.

Not only that, but the fur on the bridge of the nose looks wrinkled. There's not even a joint there to create wrinkles.

Find it strange they haven't sent you a photo of the front and the fur is not made for full body suit. I have tried a similiar fur which ended up SUPER heavy and wrinkly while the face on the fuirsuit head looked decent. Also the ears looks like two diffrent sizes and I dont understand why they think a tail to a cougar looks like a canines tail and in their gallery they have patterns for a long feline tail.

Thank you for the explanation! I don't see how/why they would have chosen this style of fur instead of just shaving down faux fur like most suits. It looks appalling.

It's short tipped fur, so all the wrinkles will show in it. IMO if OP didn't specifically ask for this fur, the builder should have avoided it or said something. Goodness.

This is pretty bad quality. Is that even faux fur? It looks like minky fabric which I....don't think I've seen a suit made with before. It looks so wrinkly, they didnt even attempt to make the zipper discrete, the tail looks slapped on, the whole thing is so low quality for the price tag paid, they should have the experience to know better. Have they sent photos of the finished head from the front? I'd be curious to see how that came out with them pushing a rodent base.