I sat in on a panel on furry languages at Megaplex one year. Out of maybe twenty people in the audience, I think maybe three non-panelists participated (yes, I was one of the audience members).

That's typical of the sf conventions, too. It may be that most of the audience actually went to learn, rather than be ready with a theory or information. Imagine the ways it could be like if 80% of the audience came prepared to give a power-point (without pictures). 👀

Had a panel like that, again at Megaplex. The topic was aliens (which can fall under a furry rubric, in my opinion), and the task set by the panel was to build a world, design a creature that lives there, and the basics of its culture. Practically everyone in the audience got involved, and we ran over by about a half-hour.

Most furry-fans have opted into a culture where they each wish to create at least one 'character' living within a created environment; so it doesn't surprise me that the fans that come to view the panel would be full of ideas & maybe even insights.

Yeah, the one FM I attended, I enjoyed. Though their practices seriously sucked ass. They open up the dealers room on January 1st with slots closing April 15th. I applied the January 1st, by April 15th they announce they still had dealers tables open and will announce June 1st the dealers. By June 15th I head nothing back and ask about the spaces so I could start making plans. I was informed "You didn't get in!" Despite my entry on January 1st. I was "On the wait list.". Come August 20th I was informed I did get it. And to my surprise they had still 3 unsold tables come starting day.

I still enjoyed the con, having the MAUL of America right there with hotel shuttle and the nice variety of restaurants there was wonderful.

But the next two years I applied I was flat out refused a dealers table. Stopped applying since. Why bother?

But yeah, the furry history panel you took part in was fun.

The Furry Migration is only about 5 years old. The club/social group that met twice-a-month at a restraunt (and had fur-suit events) had a core active membership of about 75 (?) when they started setting up a convention organization of volunteers. There are learning pains, as any new convention's committee finds out from actual experience who are actually able or willing to do their volunteer jobs without money payment. Usually fails are discovered after a fail. Big question is if enough of the social group learn from experience. Often that is only learned by taking another chance with giving responsibility to a volunteer/friend.

On the other paw, a social group can have its own home-grown culture, and that can flavor what the group expects from a free-form event like a volunteer convention. My understanding is that the fan social group "MNFurs" has about 15 years minimum history of hanging out together (maybe even 30+ years total). I have no real experience about what the overall group has evolved into. Over 5 years ago, the group members who liked the fan conventions started talking with other pop-culture fangroups locally about how conventions worked, and sent volunteers out to observe other conventions and work for other convention committees. In a very short time, they have evolved into having a large pop-culture fan convention that is a success in the region. But that doesn't guarantee that all parts of that social organization are going to be ideal, as you have discovered. I'm starting to believe that most of the furry conventions are evolving into entities that have difficulty accommodating to the culture of fur-fan artists who are making part of their living by direct sales to attendees. Maybe this has to do with the internet providing so many platforms for art archives, over the last 20 years?

Ahhh, nice.

Thank you!

My niece took part in a number of panels at Sci-Fi / Fantasy cons on the East Coast. She enjoyed it a lot and made a number of new friends!.

I think after about 4 or 5 conventions attended, the cons may start to blur together in memory (or expectations). However if people continue going to fan conventions, it is for the chance to once again meet-up with friends.

If furry critters drew Furry art, it would just be normal art to them...

Yes. And that insight gives a great insight. 😎 Seriously. That was allegedly what one of the sf magazine editors suggested to writers who wanted to sell stories to his magazine: [paraphrased] "I'd like to see stories written as if they were written 50 years from now, (for popular mainstream fiction magazines within that extrapolated future.)"

(I think you do some of that yourself, very well.)

I don't know how many stories like that were tried, but many of the authors mentioned that request. I suppose if a story were to make a good attempt, a reader would be immersed in the casual implications of the future culture, and would enjoy extrapolating the setting from internal clues., as they continued to read. More enjoyable than reading paragraphs of 'expository lumps' of a character explaining how "here in the future, I should casually mention to you the detailed history of why this is how we came to seems to read our story-texts from little glass screens!"

Definitely a good example of "show, don't tell" which many new (and old) writers tend to forget about. I know it's a stereotype that sf stories, both pro and fan, often have cardboard cutout characters for that reason. They get a bit too caught up in the world building. :P

Yep.

What program do you use? :o

At the time (2014) the art software was probably PaintShop Pro 5 (which was becoming out-of-date, even then). Now I am using Corel PaintShop Pro 2018, which is (in theory) a successor. However, what I liked about PaintShop 5 was that it had strong 'illustrator' tools, which went well with line-art & animation-style cell-color (flat color fills). Corel has it's own illustrator-style software, and had bought out "PaintShop" to turn it into a photo-retouching program (which is now how the product is focused. (And I do know a friend that does use it for blended brush-painting (via stylus & tablet) and is very happy with it.) The new version is not as cartooner-friendly.

In the future, I am likely to try and sample the CLIP STUDIO software, which was designed for producing manga-style comics & webcomics, and also working with flat colors. That may be more compatible with how I like to work... but I haven't tried it yet.

Oh I wish you luck! I've been wanting to get my hands on Clip Studio myself.

I figured out how to color solid pictures in Firealpaca, so to test run it I grabbed the Union Maid Beer drawing from last year. With your permission, is it okay if I upload it with credit?

Yes, thank you!