Shen Makes an Earnest Attempt at Making a Fursona (Pt. 1)

So, I'm not a furry, but I thought I've always kinda wanted to make a real attempt at making a fursona. Not like the type of "haha, look, Shen is a sparkle wolf" I would make for a comic, but something with deliberation put into the design (no hate towards sparkle wolves either, they just happen to be the go-to furry parody).

Let's do this shit. Here is a list of to-dos I made on how I could go about making this fursona:

[ ] Pick 3 animals

[ ] Do studies of those animals. Takes notes on any defining characteristics that could be included in an anthro version (1 hr)

[ ] Do studies of anthro art (30 minutes)

[ ] Create 3 anthro designs (1 per animal)

[ ] Iterate on them each of them once

[ ] Pick the one I like most

[ ] Iterate on it 2 more times

[ ] Make a cool drawing of it, where I vary up the angle and pose a bit

At the end of that, I should have a real, well thought out fursona!!

But I'm not gonna do ALL that today. I'm gonna do those first 3 things:

[ ] Pick 3 animals

[ ] Do studies of those animals. Takes notes on any defining characteristics that could be included in an anthro version (1 hr)

[ ] Do studies of anthro art (30 minutes)

My 3 animals are going to be some of my favorite animals:

1) Crab

2) Raccoon

3) Owl

I've definitely seen raccoon fursonas, but owls are more rare, and I'm not even sure I've seen a crab one. I know that maybe I'm supposed to think less about "what animals I like" and more about "what animals most fit my personality", but I think that if I like an animal, there's probably a reason for that. So it's time for some studies.

20 MINUTES OF CRABS, GO!

20 MINUTES OF RACCOONS, GO!

(In retrospect, I should have focused more on sussing out the form of the raccoon here. I got a bit lost in how furry and seemingly amorphous they are. )

20 MINUTES OF OWLS, GO!

And now for 30 minutes of anthro art style study. I'll be studying the animated series Brand New Animal for this, because I love Studio Trigger and remember loving the character designs in BNA. I'm only gonna time when I'm actually drawing, and I'm gonna try to find stuff close to how I wanna draw. The protagonist being very raccoon-like is fortunate for me.

Now that we've gotten this mini training arc out of the way, I'll be diving into my initial character designs tomorrow, and doing the first iteration.

Also, since I'm describing my process here, feel free to follow along at home too! And if you make something you wanna show off, just send it to me at shencomix@gmail.com, and let me know if it's okay for me to include it in a post, and how I should credit you ("anonymous patron" is okay if you're don't wanna be credited).

CYA TOMORROW!!