1. The view of Patty is tiny, because she is so far away, the magnification of the frames we look at blurs the fur to an extent. It is so far away and the camera so wobbly, that the fact that we see the flaws that we do is amazing.
Come to think of it, I'd like to see what would happen if someone tried magnifiying that BBC sequence with the Optic Nerve suit.
3. Harry from Harry and the Hendersons, is considered by most Pro-PGF as evidence that Patty is real, because in the movie, the costume doesn't look 'real'. It has obviously long hair to cover seams. However, I believe that if the Harry costume was shot under the same conditions as Patty, the results would be far better than what we see with Patty.
If I'm interpeting Stan Winston's comments on the PGF correctly, he was saying that he'd fire one of his people if they had made a costume using obvious fake fur with a uniform pattern. Rick Baker's Harry costume didn't have that problem. Sadly, this is ignored by many proponents, who love to snicker over the idea of Winston firing Baker for making a costume that's "inferior" to Patty.
Outside the Bigfoot proponent crowd, "Harry" is considered to be a very convincing Bigfoot costume, presumably due to the impressive animatronic head.
This site includes it as part of a "top 20" list of creature suits and notes why it's not as "realistic" as some of Baker's other costumes.
By the way, I noticed something that kinda ties into this discussion while watching the special features for THE MONSTER SQUAD. Some interesting notes on creature suits are brought up during the 5-part retrospective on disc 2, especially for the "Gill Man." Said costume shows muscles, doesn't show bends or folds, and the mask required the performer to wear it with his face at a distance from the eye holes (which were obscured by animatronic eyes). Just be sure to avoid the unlicensed DVD by Pacific Family Entertainment, as it doesn't have those special features and is of inferior quality.
Speaking of special effects, an idea just came to mind: If Patterson really did make the suit on his own, could he have made a water bag using the empty liner from some
box wine? Granted, there are other ways he could have obtained or built a water bag.
Also:
The return of our old friend Tor.