I always have a bunch of characters. Can't really help it. Whenever I haven't got much to do or I'm waiting to fall asleep I just start to daydream about stuff. It's like watching a movie for me. For that there needs to be a cast of characters it's happening to, and they form as a sort of character 'type' which slowly gets refined in my imagination and ends up with a name.

Not entirely sure how many there are, I'd say like 8-ish that recur most often. Not all of them have shown up in paintings, mostly because that takes more time and effort than thinking them up in the first place which is almost reflexive.

I've been messing with the idea of refining some of these stories and making comics with them and have been experimenting with styles hoping to find something that is actually *fast* enough for that without losing my interest visually. Not normally into regular comic styles so it's become something of an ordeal deciding what elements of illustration and what of comics to use. Just have to keep painting until I get something that works.

Funny enough I don't think I ever really "became" involved in the furry fandom. I was more into fantasy/horror things like werewolves, and over time I started getting called a furry and was like, okay, that'll do. Still to this day don't have a fursona, only characters, and never really got the appeal of the whole suit thing.

Oh, I understand very well what you're talking about. I also fall asleep watching movies created by my imagination. ( o˘◡˘o) However, for me it's always just some abstract people and I've never tried to think of any specific characters for this.

As for the fursuit, it seems to me that this is not a prerequisite to belong to a fandom. I think it's the same hobby as writing stories or drawing your own characters. As for me, I would choose only ears and a tail from a fursuit, while remaining in a beautiful dress. ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

For me, my character came about through roleplaying. Back in the day, I started by RPing in World of Warcraft and liked the immersion of having a different personality and character. People who RP in WoW have an addon for the game that lets you have a profile page in-game for your character. It had things like their backstory, appearance description, and how they liked to play. Some of these people have links to an adult website (that I won't name in case there's innocent people reading) with a large furry population.

I ended up joining the website and looking around. Since it wasn't in-game, it wasn't constrained by the limits of the game, so it was much more fun to write stuff on without character limits and plenty of room for experimenting. I saw all the furry characters, some were personas, some were completely fictional characters. I figured one day, why not try it out? I made a fox character, played it for a bit, got acquainted with things.

Then I made the lynx I have now. He's got some personal touches of mine, but he is a fictional character mainly. He has a backstory inspired by a musician I listened to quite a lot at the time but has undergone some changes as I've had more ideas of the kind of plots I like to do with him when I RP. Though he does have a canonical backstory, I'm very flexible with him though. Since I consider him a character, it's very easy for me to figure out what to do with him in other scenarios or settings. Like what if he was a gladiator in ancient Rome or a futuristic space pirate. I do think 'playing' him in all those different scenarios helped me set in stone what he's like. What his personality is, what his dreams are. All those things.

At that point I made him. It was a spur of the moment thing. I wanted a new character, I had the idea of the story before I even knew what species he was or what he would look like. But these days, he has become my face around these parts.

I have taken a lot of influences from games, movies and other media for him. But at the end of the day, he's become a bit of a persona still. Even if we try to make a character that isn't based on ourselves. Some influences will always seep into them from ourselves, that's only natural.

Wow, thank you so much for such a detailed story!
I think a lot of people started with computer games because they needed to play as someone else - be it a hero, a wizard, a thief or a traveler. It's interesting that you got so carried away that you kept coming up with new characters and new worlds regardless of the games. It's almost like the work of a creator, writer and artist all rolled into one. =^ᴥ^=

There's something very fun about making up those worlds, even if it's just for myself. But I'm sure I'll find a use for them eventually.

My fursona of Glanix (the blue dragon) has been with me for a very long time, over 12 years now. I used to daydream a lot, fantasize about resolving issues and troubles, holding conversations in my head and other such things. But more importantly, I was able to overcome extremely difficult and traumatic moments in my life thanks to the dragon fursona.

Glanix has evolved a lot over the 12 years, and the iteration of how he looked is completely different than how he looks now. But there are a lot of elements that came and went over the years that stuck. For example, the way that I was struggling with expressing my emotions in real life I chose to represent in the form of how the color of his scales change between light and dark blue range. The negative emotions tend to be darker in color, and also a slimy substance starts to leak out of his body, symbolizing that no matter how much I tried to hide and keep those emotions within me, they would leak out at times, and unless I found a way to properly manage them, I would burst and transform into a completely different person, destructive and hateful.

The positive emotions were also a struggle. I was questioning if I was truly happy with my gender, how things would be much more simpler if I was a woman, and how much more I would be accepted when I express my emotions (since the stigma of men being weak if they showcase their emotions), and I often dreamed how I would transform into a beautiful silver dragoness. Over time I found out that I am happy the way that I am, but I still want to implement this part of my life into the story of Glanix. As such, when he is feeling positive emotions, his scales will turn lighter blue, symbolizing that dream of a silver dragoness and a very difficult period in my life.

There are many, many other things that are linked to Glanix in the story to my real life. It's a very close 1:1 replica of who I am as a person in real life, of course some elements are changed for the sake of privacy. His bound wings and bandages on his arms and legs also have a reason why they exist, and it is closely tied to my real life experience, but those things will be answered sometime in the future when I grow comfortable enough to share that event in a slightly changed story format.

Thank you for sharing your difficult story. As far as I understand, your fursona became a kind of art therapy for you, when with the help of images and stories you were able to better understand your feelings and experiences. This is a very wonderful way for self-reflection! I wish your dragon would continue to help you figure yourself out and find harmony in your soul!

Part of my story is written among my page bio. Everything for me started from within myself, my soul. As a kid, I just...felt different than other people. I felt more connected to the nature around me than people. As I grew up, I felt a unexplainably strong sense of having wolf-like habits. I grew up in very rural parts of Georgia, US. Lots of farmland and forests, hardly much in the way of a town, more like a tiny "community" on a long dead-but used to be main highway.

So, I identified as having a wolven soul for a very long time, like a Native American's spirit guide. Which is an important note because I also felt different in the sense that I wasn't just this male I was born as, but...more. This wolven soul didn't feel like any one gender, but a mix. And this concept felt...right to me. I wasn't just male, but possibly female as well. Native Americans refer to this as "two spirit", a third gender role in their culture.

However, I didn't speak about most of this to my family, especially the "parents" as I grew up in the Southern US in the 90's. Figured it would get me more in trouble than needed, especially since they'd just say it was because of the "ADHD" I had been diagnosed with in my teen years. That I was just confused and acting up to get more attention.

I didn't have a solid concept of this wolf side of me yet, as things shifted around during the years. At one point I had gained a computer of my own and access to the internet. There I found others like me, and my sense of identity expanded, as I started to feel even more connected to this wolf soul. Shi became a deeply integral part of my existence.

Shi helped navigate the traumas of my next several years as I moved place to place thanks to family issues. I still didn't have a name for this wolf, as one hadn't be given to me. Like shi was waiting for something to happen later. Fast forward and I eventually found chakats thanks to Kacey here on FA in 2006. I felt something click in place with my soul, and a whole new world opened up to me in my head. I met another person in school that was similar to me and had a similar experience upon finding FA and the world of chakats. Some time later, 2009, the idea of  Blacktongue was born. Next year I made that page.

Fast forward more years and I finally gained a name for the wolf, thanks in part to Pacific Rim, "Gipsy Stormcloud" aka "The Beast Of The Wandering Stormclouds". Another name for her, one of her previous incarnation, was Nova Starkova. Nova led me to rediscovering my own true leonine soul, as well as my leonine soulmate, Keairra "Spitfire" DeDesarux.

I skipped over a lot, otherwise this would be longer. I will say that  Merime was instrumental in my further rediscovery of my pasts and current self. Ametrine helped me reconnect to what was, what is, and what will be. There's more to the world than humans see, and indeed, there's more to what is seen on my page.

Also, regarding the fursuit, it's not a requisite. Merely the closest humanity can currently get to achieving their desire to be their true self as they dream of returning to what once was and will be.

That's my seemingly long, but really shortened life experience regarding your question.

Oh, that's a story! I created this journal to learn more about the hobbies of my watchers, but it turns out that for many of them furry fandom is so deep and connected with feelings. It's hard to call it a simple word "hobby". This is already a part of life, a part of the soul. This is very impressive to me, as I am used to a completely different way of life and a different way of reflection. I usually relive some experiences from my life through creativity or talking to someone.

I definitely encourage you to make your own OC, whether that character is a fursona representing yourself or an independent character completely separate from you. That'll be fun! To answer your questions:

How did you get involved in the Furry fandom?
That pretty much as two answers...three if you count that I grew up loving cartoons and cartoon animal characters. Back in 1999 when I was first venturing into socializing online in chat rooms I met people and made many friends, and some of them happened to be furries. I didn't think much about it, and then one day somebody shared a picture of furry art with me that was unlike anything I'd ever seen before with an anthro cartoon character. It was hot and sexy and very well drawn. That greatly piqued my interest so I saved the file (still have it), and over time as friends shared more furry art with me I enjoyed and saved that too. All along I didn't consider myself a furry because I had some misconceptions about what it meant to be a furry, such as thinking it meant or required having a fursuit, which I didn't. For the second half, back in 2008 my best friend who I was roomies with said he wanted to go to Anthrocon and asked if I wanted to go with. I'm very asocial and didn't think I would enjoy it so my friend had to talk me into it. A furry friend from my earlier chat days hooked us up with his brother and some friends very last minute so we'd have a floor to crash on. So we drove the 6 hours to Pittsburgh to go to AC, and right from the start we were blown away. We had a total blast and before too long I had the feeling of, "These are my people!" My misconceptions were cleared up and I realized just how much of a furry I'd been all along. I was pre-regging for the next year before we left. Several months later we went to MFF, met up with some old friends, and had a blast again. It was right around then that I signed up for an account here on FA, and the rest is an ongoing history. [Unfortunately a few years ago my friend decided he didn't want to go to cons any more, and with me being incredibly asocial and really not having any other friends to go with, and I can't afford the hotel expense entirely on my own, I haven't been to a con since MFF 2018. I don't know what to do about making friends in the furry fandom so I'm stuck.]

How many characters do you have and how did you come up with them?
Just the one, my fursona Skyfox. I've used the name since my earliest days of chat rooms and took the name from a video game on my Commodore 64. Once I knew I'd found a home in the furry fandom and had already used the name for con registration, I knew an anthro fox was the best representation of the true me.

Were you the prototype of your characters yourself, or are these completely fictional new personalities?
The personality of the fursona Skyfox is basically the same as the real life me except for being more outgoing and social, better self esteem/confidence, and he's bisexual (maybe pansexual). He also has a more slender and toned physique, a body type I've never been able to have, and is very cute and handsome. Skyfox the fursona is basically an idealized version of me, a combination of both who I am and who I wish I was.

Thank you for such a detailed story!

As far as I understand, furry fandom is most common in the USA and some European countries. As far as I read the news, there are often some events related to furry. In any case, furries are much rarer in Russia. We have social media communities where people interested in furry can chat and share artwork. Some people even sew fur suits for themselves and talk about it on YouTube. However, I have heard about some mass events literally a couple of times. In addition, they were held in two major cities.

Therefore, since furries are not very common in my country, I ask similar questions to better understand people who love furries. And by the way, after all these wonderful stories that I received, I really started to understand this topic better.

And I think that I will also create my own character soon, since I already know exactly which animals I like the most. Just look at my avatar, ahah..

Well! :3 I've sort of been involved in the fandom for a couple of decades, but most of my characters aren't furry. Though on the other hand I like to change them to fit different settings so a lot of originally human characters have furry forms. I'm not even sure how I come up with some of them, they just sort of grow out of various ideas.

My fursona though is actually quite recent. When I first joined the fandom I didn't really make one besides coming up with the name "Flammifleure" and saying I was a fox. Then several years ago I gave myself permission to make a herm vixen fursona, and it felt so very right. Not only did she -- Flame -- became my primary fursona it also was a major step in realising I'm a trans woman. And in this case I pretty much am my fursona, she's just a representation of who I feel I am inside/want to be. :3

How I got into the fandom is a bit complicated, but the simple simple answer is that I was always fascinated with animals, and was imagining human-animal hybrids way before I knew it was a "thing". I was so immensely thrilled back when i discovered there were other people with similar interests!

And yesh, I definitely encourage you to make your own character(s)!

Thank you for the story! I think everyone has imagined themselves to be someone else at least once in their life. And I think it's great when there is such an opportunity to come up with a new personality and give it the features of an ideal self. Something like a landmark and a goal that you want to strive for. It's great that you were able to realize your desires a little bit through the furry fandom.