A little help...

[River]

I need some help from all my friends and, since all my rl friends are in Florida or working, I turn to you guys, though I'm sure I would've ended up asking you anyways since my rl friends aren't very serious when it comes to artwork.... >.>

Anyway... have any of you seen my fursona? Well, here she is for those that haven't. Now, don't have a hissy fit because No, I did not draw that picture. It was part of an art trade with Littlebluewolf and you'll notice that it's her half because all of my pictures of my fursona suck. But there she is...

...and I don't like her...

I haven't drawn her in over a year or close to it probably. I think she's... not good enough, you know? She doesn't represent me well enough to make me want to draw her, which I should've known from the start. I created her back when I joined DA years ago mostly just so I could have a character for other people to draw. But, now that I am more experienced and have taken the time to think about a fursona and what it should mean to me, I find Avyris here to be... well, boring...

So, she needs to be re-vamped... and I, sadly, am at a total loss. I don't think I realize enough about who I am and how I act to plan a new fursona on my own. So, I turn to you guys for help. You know how I act and can generalize my personality, I'm sure. So, I need your help. I need a species to turn my fursona into, things to make her unique and interesting, and it all should be based on my real personality...

My current brainstorm is to make her a wolf/tiger spliced creature thing from this game called Impossible Creatures. She'd have a tiger's body and a wolf head and tail, but I'm kinda iffy about that since the popular artist BeastofOblivian has a very similar character to that. Plus, I don't think a tiger fits my personality well since I think of something powerful and ferocious when I think of a tiger but I like the idea and it would allow me to keep my DA avatar...

*is stumped* o.O

[Domnopalus]

I'm afraid I can't help you, but I can say that I feel EXACTLY the same way about my old fursona, whi was a cougar. I love cougars as much as you love wolves, but I too haven't been motivated to draw my fursona for years. I've tried so many times over to create a fursona for myself that represents me well, but I've been unhappy with ALL my results. So, I'm at a total loss as well.

I bet you're right about how you don't feel like you realize enough about who you are to understand what a fursona would actually be, because I think it's exactly the same way with me. And, to top it all off, I can't even RP females for some reason.

I'll tell you one kind of interesting thing though, and that's that Domnopalus oddly enough would be closest to my "fursona" as I could probably come, because I feel he is the "closest" of all my characters to me. It's really a strange thing. I don't consider him my "fursona," but rather "an extension of my soul." Almost like I wouldn't be him, but if my soul was materialized, it would probably be like him. Maybe he just has the most aspects that I just love, which is essentially how I created him.

I took pieces and parts: I love equinesque creatures, sea monsters & monsters in general, and I wanted him to look creepy so I gave him a wide mouth, I love eyeballs for some reason (they're like windows), so I gave him six, teeth on monsters, etc. etc. and the rest fell into place. His personality, too - I love badasses, but he also has a romantic sensitive streak in him which I love also, etc.. He's almost a gothic character, too, which I love as well.

However he didn't originally look exactly as he does now. The first ever drawing of him included fins and stuff, but eventually they came off and his structure as I drew him grew into what it is now. I originally wanted him to be really buff and big and strong, but somehow he's morphed in the completel opposite direction and is elegant in his own way, and lean.

In a way I kind of see that you have similar feelings that I do for domnopalus, for Kuro. Both Dom and Kuro have a similar eccentricness in some way I seem to pick up on, and I have a feeling that you love Kuro as much as I love Domnopalus if I'm not mistaken. Sooooo, basically, as much as I'd love to have a fursona, I've decided that maybe it should just be me and Domnopalus. Maybe, since you and me are so similar, it would be good for you to just be you and your soul-extension, whoever that may be. You can't force them on, either; you have to let them come by themselves. And they will come.

[River]

Oh Dommie. *snoogs* I can always count on you to look at things from a totally different POV, even though the two of us are apparently very very similar...

I've noticed that yes, indeed I have many characters that I actually consider a part of me. Not soul-extensions, but more a physical representation of the way I view a certain part of the world. For example, Sema is probably the part we all loose when we get older, that childish innocence and sense of curiosity that fades away as more and more information and pressure is put upon us all. A dog demon named Kashi is definitely the part I hide from everyone else, the feeling of being judged only for the things you had nothing to do with, the cruelties of life and experience and so on...

Kuro, like you said, is something very special to me. He's not my fursona, at least I don't think he is, but he's something very close. Personality wise, the two of us are quite similar since we both have a good sense of humor and look up to our older brothers and what have you. But I don't think he really represents anything to me. He's just... Kuro. I don't even know what else I should say about him...

If I did have to pick someone to be my fursona of all my currently existing characters, I'd hands-down choose Haruka. She's one of my oldest reoccurring characters and is just really important to me. Her personality, her history, even her appearance remind me so much of myself without being based on myself. I suppose I've never thought of her as a fursona before I started role-playing her but, if I had one, she'd be it...

Yet, at the same time, she could never truly be my fursona. She and I are just different people. She's a whole separate being to me, someone who could walk through the door right now and I could have a conversation with. In all honesty, I don't even think the two of use would get along if that happened. No, when I say fursona, I need not so much a character, but something I can use to visually represent me and what has happened to me throughout all of time. Haruka visually represents herself and no one else, her own life and experiences that I have given to her... but not me, she could never be me and I honestly don't want her to be...

This lovely little discussion has got me thinking. Maybe, I don't need a fursona. I have so many characters that touch individual parts of myself, perhaps they are all my fursona. Alone and on their own, they are just characters but if you threw them all in a blender, god forbid, a made a milkshake with them, maybe... well, you know where I'm going with this... X3

[LockHeart]

Fursona trouble, eh? I believe the only way to get (course I only speak for how I got Flare) is just to have one of those characters in your head.
My first SN was FoxDragon, lately I'm opted to DragonFoxDemon (FoxDragon is taken everywhere, I got lucky getting it once), but plain FoxDragon is where this started. I had a character that was a foxdragon half breed. She didn't last long and I don't particularly like the idea of her anymore. Flare was just a cool name, that for awhile I used on all my characters. I had about 5 named Flare, none of the same species. I broke that phase after a couple months...lol

I haven't played a foxdragon since, then but the idea held. When I was depressed I drew this foxdragon, that only shares the tails in common with the Flare of today. The concept slowly started evolving, till right in the center of a pic there was this little white and black, three tailed, red blindfolded fox. She was born.

Really Flare doesn't actually seem to have anything in common with me or be a good representation. I connect more with felines (which is why I have so many feline characters), but I can't draw one that would pass. I can draw Flare, she can do anything I want on the digital plain, which I think is why I keep her. When I wan tto interact with characters of my friends, I just have to draw and there's Flare in my place. I have fun with her.

I know how you feel about Haruka, River. I was just talking about the same thing on another board. My gargoyle Dejah I have such a connection to, that an RolePlay idea brings tears to my eyes. Might sound corny, considering I put her through alot of pain when I'm in pain, but she is...she is just that big a part of me. I can't have her go through that kind of emotional truama, it hurts me...

Anyway, it just takes time. There just has to be that one idea that stays with you.

[River]

That's interesting Ox. ^^ I personally never liked dragon hybrids since they're usually just the original species with dragon wings and horns, which is corny and uncreative, but that's just me since I'm very adement about my dragons and how they look....

I considered making my fursona a dragon but I'm so picky with designs that I simply could not create an accurate one. So for now, she's a wolf/tiger spliced creature thing from a computer game I like to play. I'll post one of the pictures once I finish one... Will she stay this way? I doubt it, though I really like the look of her at this point. But I think you're right. Just gotta keep drawing until something sticks...

[LockHeart]

Dragons are a pain to pull off right, this is why Flare only has a dragon tail. She is dragon dorment, fox domenant.

I have only ever done two that I felt happy with. One I have since never drawn again, the other he was alittle more lucky with 2 and a half times maybe.

[River]

Yeah, when I first designed my fursona, I only drew her twice and fell in love with the second design. But now, I am bored with it... This time around, I drew her a total of five times but in all of them her design is the same because I seem to have fallen in love with it. Not only is it helping me draw my wolf heads but it also makes for good cat anatomy practice since her body is that of a tiger. The best of both worlds and I love it. ^^