An alternative design. Following a reasonable success with the Mk II, this time, I tried to reduce the apparent length of the pasterns by burying my toes inside the hoof rather than placing them on top of it.
I cut out four hoof plates from some chipboard that I had lying around in the workshop. Each hoof would be around 150mm x 130mm wide (6” x 5”), so the rear of each hoof would stick rearwards beyond the balls of my feet to help me to balance.
I then cut a shelving bracket and bent it to provide heel support. I figured that if I used split-toe wetsuit booties, the split could be incorporated in the cleave between the two toes of the goat hoof. I stuck the hoof plates on, added cardboard formers, and applied a thin layer of
This design didn’t work. I quickly discovered that my foot needs support on both sides, so it was back to the drawing board again. And I couldn’t get a meaningful gap between my toes, so I abandoned the split-toe idea. I did cut the uppers of the booties because it was otherwise almost impossible to force my feet around the bends into a comfortable position.
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| Improved foot support |
Here’s the improved metalwork support, glued and screwed to the hoof plates.
Taking a weight-saving idea from
Patassy’s hoof-making video, I formed the hoof shapes in wire screening and added several layers of papier maché. Good old Elmer’s Glue-All cut 50/50 with water makes the paste. This process is extremely messy. Glue goes everywhere, and clean-up is a major operation even if it does clean up with soap and water.
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| Papier maché |
Once the papier maché had hardened, I added
Bondo in several thin layers, sanding down between each layer and filling low spots. Using a selection of power tools, I formed a profiled hoof sole. I’d like to leave realistic hoofprints in the dirt.
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| Repeated thin layers of Bondo |
Now painting. After an initial spraying in black with paint that, according to the can, ‘adheres to anything,’ I got the acrylics out and painted the hooves in several coats. The little balls are ping-pong balls, cut in half, covered with Bondo, filled with spackling, and painted to match. These would become dewclaws.
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| Painted and varnished |
I sealed the surface with a couple of layers of Elmer’s, which would seal any cracks and provide a slightly glossy finish. Then a walk test before adding the fur.
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| Walk test |
I stuffed fur into the cleave first and glued the front, then worked around both sides of the hoof and finally up the sole of the bootie to the heel.
The actual growth of the hoof begins at the coronet border region, the uppermost area of the external foot just at the hairline of the leg. The sole of the hoof should be parallel to the coronet, which is different from in a horse’s hoof. Thanks to this sketch from goatwisdom.com (and there’s an oxymoron if ever there was one), I won’t screw up the fur and spoil the overall effect.
I fired up the hot glue gun and stuck shaggy fur all around the coronet and up the back of my sole and around my heel to create the pastern and fetlock. Then I added dew claws. These are ping-pong balls cut in half, covered with Bondo and painted, and filled with lightweight spackling to give a larger surface for the glue without adding too much weight. I trimmed the fur at the fetlock joint to give a better surface for the glue.
On the subject of weight, I already noted that the Mk I hooves were too heavy to be practical. The Mk II hooves weighed 2013g and 2055g (around 4 ½ lb each), which is still rather on the heavy side. The Mk III hooves are a ‘mere’ 1570g (3 ½lb) each. This is a two-fold improvement: first they’re lighter, and secondly I have improved my quality control and both hooves weigh almost the same as each other.
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| Front view |
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| Back view |
Now furred and Velcroed, here are the (almost) finished hooves. All that remains is to do a full costume test and make any minor adjustments. But that'll involve cavorting about outside, and as it’s over 40°C/104°F at the moment, I'll do that some other time.
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