Reference sheet of the new Sofox, designed and drawn by  foxenawolf

So... where to start. There were so many little things that bugged me about my previous avatar. Sure  beanie's icon was cute. And purple fox was fun... but...

Firstly I never quite "got" the markings, secondly it never felt distinctive enough, hard to identify in black and white, no silhouette clarity.... I knew enough about character design to realise I needed better clarity and focus to the design, but what to change it to? I struggled with years. Finally, on my most recent push to redesign my character, I brought up character design in  foxenawolf's (and  genesisw's) stream, and ultimately Fox offered her services to redesign my character!

She's know me a while, and drawn my previous character before (like me being "helpful" http://www.furaffinity.net/view/25921799/ ), but she's also studied character design and sold me on her expertise, even when dealing with something so personal to me.

Truth is, seeing her work, I realised how out of my depth I was when it came to character design. You need to know so many things. Species, anatomy, shape, colour theory, knowing which details are important, which not.... I was working my way blind. I knew I wanted something slick and "professional", but I wasn't a professional myself so how could I do it? It's not like the earliest versions of my character where I literally edited Tails sprites in Paint Shop Pro (ah, so that's how colour replace works....)

So this was a lesson for me in leaving something for the experts, someone who has several orders of magnitude more experience in a field than I do. By leaving it to them, I finally managed to achieve something I'd wanted to for years.

The new Sofox has several nice features. A bit more energetic with big legs because *ahem* gotta go fast. The floppy ear was unexpected, but many are liking and I do admit looks cute. Good use of colour in clearly definied areas (purple and blue still totally rocks), all that good design stuff I talked about.

Ultimately, the best thing is to have a fursona I'm proud of and excited to put into new things. I've been kinda holding back because there were always a few things I wasn't sure of about my character, even when drawing him, but now... nothing's stopping me!

Oh, except I might want to decide upon a wardrobe. Clothing can be good in the right circumstances. Ah well, there's always time for a fashion montage! Stay tuned!

EDIT: Minor changes.