This Beautiful Fur Suit Head Is Lit with Hundreds of Adafruit NeoPixels

If you’ve spent any time on the internet, you’ve probably heard of the furry community. This community is for people who enjoy making and wearing fur suits, which are usually made to look like cartoon versions of real or fictional animals. Whatever your opinions are of the people in that community, it’s impossible to deny how impressive those fur suits are from a technical standpoint. A great example of that is this fur suit head built by The Mariday, which is lit with hundreds of Adafruit NeoPixels.

Take one look at this fur suit head in action, and you can see what makes it so special. The entire head glows with beautiful colors through the white fur, and even the eyes light up. The Mariday doesn’t say exactly how many LEDs are being used, but there are definitely hundreds of the Adafruit NeoPixel individually-addressable RGB LEDs. Those are ideal for the job, because they can be chained together using just four wires and then programmed to light up in whatever pattern is desired.

The LEDs are controlled by a Raspberry Pi through an Adafruit FadeCandy board. The FadeCandy connects to a computer, such as the Raspberry Pi, via USB. You can then use the included software to set the physical location of the NeoPixels and control their patterns. Those LEDs are all mounted on a 3D-printed shell, with the fur on top of it to diffuse the light. The Mariday has even built a number of fans into the fur suit head to keep it and the wearer cool. Once turned on, the LED lighting effects can be controlled by a second person over WiFi from a smartphone.