The topic of people’s furry origins has been going around the fandom lately, so here is my furry story.
It was the mid 90’s- I was in early middle school, maybe around 10 or 11 years old. I don’t really know the exact year. My family was among the few who had internet, and I would use it to browse around kid’s sites and also search random things (I would say I googled it, but no, I used Lykos, HotBot, and other now-defunct search engines for many years before I would ever use Google!)
Popular topics for me to look up included The Lion King, Balto, wolves, and werewolves- all obsessions of mine at the time. It was a time where people actually had personal websites (no galleries or social media to update content on your behalf). I browsed hobbyist toy collectors pages, werewolf-themed webrings, and amateur artist’s websites.
It’s no wonder that my queries eventually lead me to the SCFA- the Squeaky Clean Furry Archive, which would later become Yerf. Yerf was one of the early furry art websites and over the years it became more carefully curated in content, to the point the BEST of the best were posting pro-level furry art here. To the extent where studio recruiters were supposedly keeping an eye on the talent. Yerf had a few rules, mostly: anthropomorphic animals only (the rules page had a handy definition of "anthropomorphic"), no fanart, no adult content. For an 11 year old kid it was the ideal site to see for my first exposure to furry. I always liked to draw before, but WOW I suddenly had a goal! I was going to be the youngest Yerf artist ever (spoiler: this didn't happen)! I applied shortly after I discovered the website- here’s the images I used, if you’re curious.
Anyway, as you can guess, the reviewers declined to accept me, but I think they probably could tell I was a little kid, I remember their rejection email not being too harsh, just telling me I should keep drawing. I applied over and over again through the years, basically as soon as my waiting period after a rejection was up, I applied again. I never did get accepted before the site ended up crashing permanently, which was really a shame since it had been such an intense dream of mine for so long.
Shortly after initially finding Yerf/SCFA in the mid-to-late-90’s, I created my fursona, Denali. Wish badly I had the original drawings of her. But this comic from 1999 is still pretty close to how she looked in the first drawings.
When I was old enough to interact with people online and the Yerf forums opened up, I started actively participating in the furry fandom. Around 2002 I opened up my Side7 and YNA galleries and got tons of helpful critique to guide me on my neverending artistic journey. For many years because of the kinds of sites I browsed, I thought furry was just a specific art subject matter people liked to draw, so I was confused for a while by people who don’t draw or write who considered themselves furries. I hadn’t quite grasped the breadth of what the fandom is. Over time, I got the idea though, and I started looking at fursuits.
In the early 2000’s, not many people owned or wanted fursuits. I remember talking to one of my online furry friends about wanting a fursuit, and her reaction was “…why?!” That pretty much summed it up how most of the fandom viewed fursuits (fun fact though, said friend now makes fursuits professionally too!) Fursuiters were kind of the oddballs of the fandom. Harmless but really weird. That didn’t deter me any of course, and I created my first fursuit in 2002 from a mishmash of poorly assembled storebought parts that I glued hand-painted fur to. It was impossible to see or breath, and when I took off my wig I almost threw it on a lit candle. :*)
I immediately wanted to make another that was better, so I made version 2.0 from scratch using the worst tutorials ever... I was basically just going off of verbal descriptions of what to do, the tutorial site's images were half broken. There really were very very few how-to guides out there, and most of the people creating these costumes just made one or two as a hobby and had to innovate literally everything from scratch. So there weren't any standard methods or anything back then, everybody did it differently, and lots of people used plastic mesh and metal wires and all kinds of kind of clunky materials. Ahh, back in the day!
One thing really did lead to another and I was hooked on building fursuits, it was so unlike any other art form I had ever done. My suits were absolutely terrible, ugly and poorly made at first, but of course practice, critique (thanks fursuit LJ!), and instruction really helped and they slowly got better. I wore my v 2.0 head to Dragon*Con, Anime Weekend Atlanta, and my first furry con, Furry Weekend Atlanta.
I was no newbie to cons, my parents had been taking me to Dragon*Con since I was a kid, so I was used to the hustle and bustle. Actually what surprised me about my first FWA (2005) was how dang TINY it was! It took place at an airport area hotel and I had to bring a notarized letter of permission from my dad to attend because I was still 17. Seeing fursuits for the first time (ones I didn't make that is) was so surreal! I believe the very first one I saw was Banshee Husky. Then rounding the corner was all these other fursuiters I knew from online too! I started naming them all out loud, excitedly. My people! I had arrived! I got to fursuit a couple of times in Denali and in my Growlithe fursuit. I met Tilt Longtail, who helped me feel at home at the con even though it was his first time too. I ended up almost getting a migraine when I went home that night though, my masks were designed to have a closed mouth, so I was breathing in my own used air for hours with no way to get fresh air. No good! However after some rest in the dark with a big mug of water I was okay. Here's a picture of me enjoying FWA 2005.
Twelve years later, I've been to 9 more FWAs, 3 Anthrocons, 1 MFF, 2 or 3 MFMs, one sketchy Elliott's party, and this year I plan to attend another FWA and my first Megaplex. I've built tons and tons more fursuits and now it's actually my sole form of employment! And recently my husband joined me working full time on these costumes too. The fandom's been really good to me!
I have times where I roll my eyes at the antics of those around me and swear the fandom's name, but mostly I am grateful to be here. I feel like furry people "get" me more than anyone, most of my closest friends are furries or at one point considered themselves furries. If it weren't for furry I have absolutely no idea what I'd be doing as a job at this point. I really really like working for furries. I've dabbled in doing freelance art outside the fandom and honestly, furries are the friendliest, most enthusiastic, and easiest to deal with clients out of anyone. And I feel like I can be myself here. If I think of myself as an anthropomorphic red wolf and draw myself as such, nobody bats an eye. I'm in good company! We're all pretty weird and our weirdness is what makes us cool. Whether you're an artist, a roleplayer, a fursuiter, an art collector, a writer, photographer, dancer, plush lover, fur afficianado, you're welcome in our ranks. There are no hard and fast rules in furry except an appreciation for anthropomorphics and an implied involvement in the community. I hope Zootopia does bring in new furries! I hope other fun weirdoes find support and excitement here. :)
