Bear Body

I need to find some way to create the body for the bear, they way i wanted to do it was to create it like a costume that is worn by the puppeteer. I don't want to create a full costume but kind of imply that there is a body by creating a structure around the puppeteer. They only way that i could find that something similar had be done is for the polar bear in a production of His Dark Materials. 

I tried to create something similar by creating creating a circular structure around the body but didn't work very well as it didn't keep it shape very well. So i then tried to create it in pretty much the same way as in his dark materials which worked a lot better as still doesn't keep its shape but doesn't move that far either. I created it simply by using wire and then gluing on foam triangles to represent a fur on the bear.