Personally, I was brought into the community by a friend and it’s been a mixed bag in terms of influence. What’s keeping me in here is how friendly everyone is! I always had shifty friends so meeting all these wonderful people is amazing.

Thank you for your answer! I'm really glad to hear that you found good people to communicate with in this community!

Always lookin to meet more, of course

Thanks for the open mind! A rare chance to get more about the artist, behind the craft.

My Story started quite similar to be fair.
I've grown up in a rural area, grand parents still had somewhat of a farm going. Still I was close enough to a big city to have a major influence on my development.
My big ticket to furry and feral was the original Lion King, even thought it was released before I was born^^ Haven't had any online activity for years to come. Only had one friend in my small village, which was also interested in animal characters. We are still great friends today and even after some year long silence between us.
Other than this one guy furry was not more, than loving every animation and movie with more animals than humans didn't not exist in my small world.
All this changed with the start of my education in the big city in my teens. Going more and more independent and actual access to the internet.. lol
Don't have to much memory of this time period, in regards to my furry presents or what I was supposed to be learning. I might recall my interest to be more on the anthro side during this time.

And SUDDENLY the internet exploded with pastel colored horses, which is another whole character development arc, which was weird, but fun and good friends. Due to external pressure and drifting away from the pony fandom, I basically hid from most people and "focused" on my study.
The only thing, never to leave my field of interest is the furry art and artists.
I never really picked up the craft myself in all those years of silently lurking and admiring, until maybe to years ago when I bought a graphic table to dick around with. Never done to much with it, because life can be a mess and require different priorities, than learning to draw fluffies.

Over the last two years or so, with the help of great friends and support, I was finally able to leave behind my old persona, which never saw the light of day - metaphorically speaking

Now I'm as confident as I have never been.
To reflect the change and also because I finally managed to create something I have a fursona now.
My biggest deficit is still my online presence, I'm not good at texting and keeping in touch, if I don't meet people regularly.

I'm not lonely at all have good friends and family, which I hold close and dear.
I just only manage to have and hold those face to face.

I'm so sorry this got so ranty and long. Guess I really needed to tell this, even if no one reads this. Thank you very much for opening this opportunity for me.

Dear greetings from a weird hungry loaf of bread, that's only 50% beans^^

I identify with the not keeping in touch unless I see people - I've been putting that down to the AuDHD spectrum, but maybe it's more normal than I thought.

Thank you for sharing your story!

I was born later than The Lion King had been released, too, but it was a big thing in my childhood as well. I even remember how I was playing with others via Internet for a short time and had a character named Riza (obviously inspired by name Zira). :) And yeah, MLP was a wonderful thing that totally absorbed me for a couple of years!

I'm really glad that you found your confidence and you have good people you can rely on) And I totally understand your point about keeping in touch via texting, I find it difficult without meeting on regular basis, too.

Thank you once again for your answer, I really appreciate it!

I wasn't into the group playground games at school, so I played little fantasy games mostly by myself at primary and junior school, eventually adopting an animal-based fantasy based on 'The Leopard from Lime Street', a UK comic with strong Spiderman parallels.
At university, I found the Usenet group alt.fan.furry which was very quiet at the time and mostly consisted of announcements of Furry Parties in the US. I subscribed because I liked the name, but I thought it was a heavy metal band. Eventually I asked the channel what it was about and... I think Jimmy Chin responded explaining it and mentioning the Tezula FTP site.

From there I joined FurryMuck and developed my huge otter character, playing him until I married when my current badger character rose to prominence, and then my wife didn't like me RPing so I stopped.

My characters mostly represent a mixture of aspirational and perceived personality, skills, and lifestyle qualities. I draw a bit, though I rarely manage to get beyond sketches.

Of late I'm using AI to generate art because commissioning... I don't like the term 'feral' because that refers to domestic animals gone wild, and none of my characters are domestic species: they're standing-upright animals, like Beatrix Potter or Redwall. I prefer theriomorphic or 'therio'. Anyway, commissioning therio art only works 50% of the time, and I find the emotional effort of telling an otherwise highly skilled artist that they've completely bogged up my character when any idiot with a photograph of a badger could point out the errors, and why as a so-called artist can't they see that without insultingly trying to pass off their pathetically (but beautifully rendered) off model image and now I have to summon the balance to tell them to do it all over again because they ignored my requirement for sending WIPs... it's emotionally draining and very stressful.

The main problem with AI art - as a consumer - is that of the nets which can draw a decent badger, none are able to decorate the borders of my badger's stripes with gold fur because it's like nothing they've trained on, and at the moment the in-painting tools I'm aware of aren't detailed enough to let me delete the borders accurately.

Unfortunately, it's so easy - currently with Bing - to churn out photographic level images which give me enough of a dopamine hit to make me press the button again, I'm like those experimental rats with the pleasure button. It's very distracting but very compelling - especially when I only give myself £50 per month to buy art.

I hang out on here, mostly reading journals and looking at art from or favourited by folks who favourite my stuff, and picking up new artists to watch. And entering raffles if I think they might be good at therio art.

Oh, I originally came here because I was trying to draw and thought I may as well share what I drew in case someone else liked it too. Then I thought I might learn from the real artists. Then I started commissioning.

Thank you for your answer!

As I see from your story you've been a member of the community for many years. I'm curious if the community have changed much from back then when you joined it? What is your opinion?

Thank you for explaining the nuances of the terms 'feral' and 'theriomorphic'. I had thoughts on accuracy of using a term 'feral', but I had no alternative in my active vocabulary as a non-native speaker.

I'm really sorry to hear about your struggles with ordering commissions and not getting wanted result from artist; that must be frustrating. I think majority of artist here are more experienced in drawing canines and felines, that is why they can have difficulties with drawing a badger. However, it is not an excuse for not providing good result, of course.

I always loved creating characters. Like any kid, I started giving personalities to my toys or just making up characters within my head. Then I discovered the role-play forums around 2002 or something and this started my character frenzy. I went through several styles and medias of role-playing and I was really, REALLY into it. I stopped a few years back though but I keep enjoying creating characters and developing their personality and backstory.

As for furries... I always loved anthro characters (although I loved feral and humans too) ever since early childhood. Started with all the cartoons and comics with anthro characters (Disney and cie) and then the game Black & White. Then when I found out about the furry fandoms, I just had to join.

Both the role-play and the furry communities brought me lots of relief from life, gave me a kinda social life (although purely virtual), and motivated me to create even more and explore new tools. The only reason I started drawing was because I couldn't afford art of my characters, so I figured if I sell some very cheap art I can save little by little to buy drawings from "real" artists.

Thank you for sharing your story)

Oh, I remember hearing about game Black & White! Though I've never had a chance to play it, I always found its concept interesting.

I'm happy to hear that role-play and furry communities brought so many good thing in your life. And I think you found very good way to save up for drawings from others, if making art yourself brings you joy! :)