I originally created the character not long after I found the furry fandom, when I was at college in Bracknell, back in 1998, when I first had access to the internet.
This was back in the day before FurAffinity, and before Social Media as a whole. There were no UK Fur forums, and not many meeting places online for furries other than MIRC chat, FurryMUCK and other such places. The biggest art repository of the time was the Velan Central Library (VCL), which is still around today. At the time though, it was super-basic, and consisted only of links to the artists’ online handle, and then directories of their art. There were no paragraphs or notes of information, and no comments, tags, or other ways to search the art.
I happened across the fandom through information in other places; Manga Mania, a UK magazine about anime and manga had a brief note in a sidebar about United Publications, who were an importer of furry and anthro comic books and art portfolios, as well as anime and manga (I bought many NTSC anime tapes from them at the time, as well as some comics and art).
From there I found my own way into the online world of the fandom, despite having drawn my own characters for years previously, my art being basic as it was then.
I hadn’t really had a ‘solid’ character at the time. I’d done a few collaborative things with friends, drawn our own silly, fun, comics that were mainly just mashups of stuff we thought was cool at the time, and was just a glorious mess of influences, storylines, settings and ‘cool shit’ that didn’t really ever get properly sorted out, or any stories, comics, or anything written for it, and was just something we talked about.
My friends drifted away into other things, mainly video games or other hobbies, but I kept drawing and writing, and equally kept getting myself into new fandoms, and still do to this day.
As such, when I found myself getting interested in the furry fandom, it was like I’d found other people who did the same as me; created characters, drew animal people and creatures, and - sometimes - created worlds they inhabited and penned adventures they had in those worlds.
For me, I can’t just create a character that exists in limbo. They aren’t just ‘there’. They have to have some substance, some background and context.
As I browsed the wonders (and weird horrors... my mind was opened so much I think my brain fell out...) of the VCL and the furry fandom’s presence online, I started to form my own character, inspired and intrigued by the ones I was seeing in front of me. A name came first; ‘Silverwind’, and then I started to add other details about this character.
I chose his species originally as a wolf with silver fur and black markings. He was a freelance pilot, who flew transforming mecha like those in Macross, another of my long-term loves and interests. He was a good guy, smart, funny, handsome and kind; as I’ve always loved and idolised heroic-type characters. A lot of his character (as in, his personality and behaviour) was influenced by a combination of Jack O’Neill from Stargate SG-1, and Isamu Dyson from Macross Plus. So, he did the right thing, was tough and uncompromising to his enemies, and those who were bad, evil, or otherwise negative personalities.
Those aspects have pretty much always remained as I’ve gone on with him, but he’s changed a lot over time in a variety of ways.
I developed various storylines and worlds around him as I’ve had him for such a long time, and these changed too. He moved from being a mecha pilot to a Special Forces power armour pilot, in a post-apocalyptic world. He changed from a wolf to a fox, and lost an eye and arm, and became and older, gruffer and less optimistic character, jaded by the world and the losses in it, and keeping himself to himself, only to be sought out to help save the world from the aliens that had taken it over. This version was inspired in part by Solid Snake, and the world around him by my long-term love of franchises where freedom fighters band together to overthrow a tyrannical and apocalyptic enemy. I also started introducing and creating other characters that lived alongside him at this point, many of whom I’ve reused over and again in various ways, or who have evolved themselves as much as he has, or who have become recurring ‘archetypes’ in my stories and in the orbit of Silverwind as a character.
There were other oddball and brief recurring versions of Silverwind too - at one point he had feathery wings, and was younger. Another brief thought had him become a her (well, mostly...), and part wolf, part fox. He gained relatives; a sister named Whitewind, who was another character who had existed in her own right for a short while.
All of these kind of faded away though, and the definitive version of him became the gruff, whiskey-drinking, cigar-smoking one-eyed, cyber-armed grizzled soldier. The settings around him changed a few times, but there was always the element of him being a military man, who was part of a family of friends and comrades, fighting against some evil, usually as part of a para-military organisation.
Eventually after several years of his being a fox, I wanted a change. My interests had changed, and the character was getting old and stale. While I loved foxes (and still do), I wanted to change my character.
Horses had always been a species of animal I’d had great love for and felt inspired by. Many secondary characters or supporting characters in my fiction had been equine, and many of my favourite characters of other friends, or artists I followed, were equine. My love for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic had also crystallised and become a solid part of my interests and makeup, and had only thrown napalm on my love for equine anthropomorphic characters.
I’d created a FiM OC, originally with a different name, but it wasn’t long before I decided to change Silverwind in a big way, and make him an equine.
Originally he was a simple anthropomorphic Pegasus, complete with feathered wings. But as I sketched out more of him in my head and formed him further into a solid character, he changed as one would expect. His fur turned from black to grey, and his mane became more of a shaggy, wild style. His tail became plaited for practicality and style; to set him apart from other characters. He also gained ‘energy’ wings, inspired by a comic strip I found online, and also a long-held idea of mine for other characters in the past, though they come and go (and I frequently just call him a horse anyway!).
His personality remained much the same, though he became less gruff, and more cocky, smart-mouthed and somewhat younger than the previous version of his character, and less scarred and battle-worn, more optimistic and naive and less hard-bitten and disillusioned.
Some of the supporting characters around him have changed too, a lot in fact. Taia, the feline who used to be his main love interest has been replaced with Irry, a character who also changes and has yet to fully set in my head; though she is an equine too, and more different in personality than the tomboyish and more forward Taia.
Naia (yes, the name is supposed to be similar) has filled in her niche somewhat, but physically is very different, being a buxom, physically large and powerful bovine woman, with a thoroughly plump but strong physique and a cool, but witty demeanor that hides her real loving nature underneath.
The setting for their adventures still remains a bit nebulous in my head. My influences change and my ideas with them, and as always, I have a dozen or more ideas for stories, settings, and plots in my head at any one time, and it’s always hard to settle on anything.
I had originally envisaged a post-apocalyptic setting, inspired by my love of the Fallout franchise, but that changed to a Space Opera idea. But now, again, I still have other ideas and concepts, going back to my ideas for a take on a modern-day or near future setting, inspired by my love for modern-day aircraft and militaria, which extends as long as my love for anthropomorphic characters. Though this too would have sci-fi elements, because to me that makes for a much, much more interesting story than a standard ‘two countries fighting’ setting or story.

I’m sure Silverwind and all of my other characters around him will continue to change and evolve, and over 20 years, I’m not surprised that he has changed. I’ve had him as a character since I was a teenager, and it’s no surprise that as I’ve evolved and changed as a person, and my interests and the way I think and feel about things and look at life has changed, that he and the setting he inhabits have changed a lot - though, he still does have a core of values, traits, and concepts that are still the same ones I’ve always held as an important part of myself.
Silverwind has always been a combination of ‘ideal’ values and traits I wish I could express myself, and things I wish I had the ability to do, and I’m sure that part of him will never change - but it’ll be interesting to look back in another five, ten, or twenty years and see if I still have him as a character, and how much he’ll have changed again.