While backing up my previous work into the external hard drive, I stumbled upon a hidden away dusty folder, a time capsule. This folder contained pretty much Most of the drawings I did during 2004-06. I decided that I should share a bit of my history, and probably inspire some new artists. This story might be a bit long, but the picture I posted, contains the character designs I have my “avatar” - “VirtualFox” from all over the years.

<TL>

Originally: I didn't draw much after I got my first computer at the age of 8. I wasn't even furry, or aware of such. But I liked comics, mainly reading donald duck here in Finland. I still hear claims from my parents saying that I actually drew pretty well in the past, but since I didn't draw at all for 8 years the talent got “used up on computers”. As years went by, my family moved to the Philippines. This is where I first met a my bestfriend  crosscounter in Middle school. From my memory, back then he drew a lot of cars and mecha.

At one point I asked my friend how he ended up drawing so well. He responded: Practice. And so I did. And here I am. But the future looks even more different, as i will continue doing so.

We discussed mainly about games on our first few years. Eventually, after meeting new individuals we grew into a group 5 of fairly different individuals with similar interests. This later on concentrated into a them. One of our, more eccentric friends was a big nutjob on Manga and Anime, he and cross pretty much constantly discussed about such things, but I really, living my life in europe earlier, wasn't really familiar with them. But I hung about trying to learn what this form of animation actually was. This was about the time web comics such as “Megatokyo” popped up. It is then when we discussed about making a web-comic of our own. Over the years however, this had some major shifts to a more plot line focus. Yet, to date it has not yet launched, mainly because being busy with school.

However, we had a structure that struck through out the whole school. I colored cross's work, while he did the lineart/drawings for it. Around the time of highschool, Naruto came about. And this is when another good friend, “Rad” began asking cross to draw “his Naruto character”. He drew them, and I mostly colored them. Over time, we shared our techniques in coloring, effects and drawing/line arting with each other, and I drew some drawings.

( These requests/commission are still coming in from rad, much to crosses dismay, and he rather draw for others else now (which is, why I think he came here) ).

About this time I was following a few web comics: “Inverloch” and a specificity furry comic “Stolen Generation” (by  kitfox) . It had a light adult themes (yiff) going on early in the comic, which seriously struck as “strange” to me for a comic of such style. But being young... I'll leave that to the imagination. This got me into reading what the heck was a furry and soon after, I discovered 2 the Ranting gryphon, and 2 Sense which was littered with furry information, while disguised under “general appeal” of dark humor, sometimes 'very gay' but remaining tolerable. Before long, I grew even more tolerant, and was stalking the furry community as a “closet furry”. I joined then second Life and then my art style improved at an explosive pace.

So for those aspiring artists out there: Keep practicing, but also do not forget to experiment a bit.

</TL>


2005:
By this time I had experimented with all types of media, be it abstract, 3D, traditional or digital. However, at this time I became more and more inspired by the furry art and comics, My drawings began to be more Furry: foxes, wolves were scribbled all about my note books, instead of stick figures and weapon designs. With the “know how” of coloring, I shaded up and colored on of my drawings. I do not remember submitting it anywhere however. I drew a lot during this time, but I mainly did it by “airbrushing” instead of “sketching”. Simply said, I “painted” the drawing. This took time, and I simply didn't want to use all of my time into drawing. I shared my free time between gaming, making media and watching anime. At the time my character was simply a blue Folf.

2006:
I joined Second Life under the Alias of “Matti Deigan” in the Fall. This was right after they had opened up second life to non-credit card holders. Here I became a furry, hanging out with furry individuals and so forth. I got my paws on my first Wacom Graphire during this time. Due to increase in gaming activity, It evolved from a Folf with a helmet, to a Crazy Folf with a helmet.

2007:
My art style changed radically: I discovered  megawolf77 inked works, and began to experiment with inking and actually drawing my pictures instead of “painting” them. With digital works, I begun combining what I had learned. Most of my works before hand that required line art, were simply made with the “pen tool”. Since I didn't draw the original picture, I didn't get to learn much. But when I begun making my lines manually, it helped me learn. Cross shared a lot of tricks and gave me tips, in exchange for me giving him tips and tricks with the coloring, shading and effects. My character evolved from a “Nutjob Military Folf” to a Tiger Fox, which sorta mirrors my heritage. (euro-asian). This was probably the one of the most active time in both Second Life and the Fandom.

2008:
Was a Blank period. I moved to Finland, and I pretty much got separate from the source of inspiration. I had to do a military conscription in Finland, but ended up getting out early, still however I was stuck using an really old computer (at least for the first quarter), so I wasn't able to do any digital art. Since I was applying for an Art University and a Polytechnic (now University of Applied science). I drew a lot of mixed media work for the art university, which weren't specifically furry. Over the year I became more and more active in Second Life once again. At the time, I met up with a lot of the local furry folk. Eventually after the summer, I had gotten into into the university of applied science but not into the art university. But I took in the offer and am since then been studying there.

2009:
Now. I've had a resurgence of drawing inspiration since my visit to Eurofurence. The Last picture of the right is the picture I used for my con badge. Some pictures from EF actually show the badge really clearly as it was fairly large and visible.