The tail was a lot easier than the head and the wings. Especially the wings. At the core is a delrin rod, the same stuff I used in the "fingers" of the wings. Here I used a 3/8" diameter rod; it would be able to handle the weight of all that foam better. Its stiffness would also give the tail a more lizardlike motion. Like the wings, the delrin was heat-bent into a more-or-less curved shape. At this point, the base of the tail was the most difficult thing. It had to connect to the rest of the costume, after all, and securely enough that its movements wouldn't rip it away. I decided to simply screw it to the wing pack. It would fit nicely just below the gas tank. The screws would go through the pack and into some large nuts (which would also help keep the tank from sliding out the bottom of the wings). I took some S-hooks from a plant store to connect the nuts with the delrin. The grey thing in the middle was just to keep the hooks from coming together, which would interfere in its movement. The advantage of this whole arrangement is that it was very convenient; the disadvantage was that I wouldn't be able to wear the tail until the wings were complete.

This is the foam that went around the delrin. I started out with a block of the lightest stuff the factory and started cutting it into a very long pyramid. I used an electric carving knife, the kind used for turkey; it seems to work best. The mirror was used to make sure I cut perpendicular to the foam. But cutting the corners awy from the pyramid several times, the foam became a decent approximation of round.

This is the foam, after all the rounding was done. The second picture is mainly to show how long it is: about six feet. It's nine inches around at the base. I wasn't sure if that's be to wide, but I figured it'd be easier to cut it down than add more. And as it turned out, it was fine.

And here is the foam, finished. The original plan was to take the delrin and simply force it through the foam's center, but it was too blunt. And when I got something sharper, it was nearly impossible to keep it centered for long. The solution was, obviously, to keep me from having to. So I cut it up into sections. The tip was the longest, since it had to be long enough to be attached to the delrin. The piece most at the base was shortest, and indeed had to be cut down significantly. It was done at an angle so the foam, which would be against my butt and lower back, wouldn't start its curl upwards from a horizontal position. The other pieces were also cut at angles to help the bending, but they're much less noticable.

Here'm cutting the tail pattern, and then the cloth from that. It's a simple triangle made out of spandex, times three. Spandex is stretchy, so I to make it tight around the cloth I had to make it smaller than the diameter by about half an inch or so.

And this, quite simply, is the foam on the delrin, ready to be covered. The section ends don't quite match up, but that can be made to work, since dragons and lizards have ridges on their spines.