Cute, even for a janitor! 😁

Thanks!

First time seeing him from the front angle.

Indeed, I seem to have only drawn him from the side up to this point...

the chin whiskers 🥺

They're cute whiskers, but don't touch!
Even if it is tempting to help him pluck them out or trim them... Mostly because to this day I haven't decided if they're some sort of sensory whisker like many animals have, or if they're just wild hairs or the start of a beard.

He's an interesting case where simultaneously I imagine his hygiene is decent but his grooming is virtually nonexistent, so while he definitely showers semi-regularly (or whatever the equivalent of showering is in a sci-fi space setting), he probably can't even be bothered to drag a brush through his mane unless it's to remove some foreign object--and he's probably never been on the business end of a hair trimmer!

Wow, coming back to the old comments has reopened the whole "would anthropomorphic animals shave or trim their fur, and how would they otherwise groom themselves?" can of worms... I imagine that unlike humans, showering/bathing daily would not be practical, and some might use a hair trimmer to keep their body hair short and manageable and easier to clean while others might prefer to grow it out.

sorry about the late reply but-
I have thought about that same thing! honestly though I am happy to imagine things unrealistically
in my world, furries have tattoos that show on their fur, and when they blush you can still see it on their cheeks! despite fur
and that showering isn't too terribly frustrating Xb
imagine the drain cloggage lol

Hey late replies are fine! I still tend to let messages pile up and then answer them days or weeks later... even though I do check my messages a couple times a day. Sometimes you just gotta be in the right mood to respond, or take a bit of time to think of a good response!

I guess I like to think about things more realistically because I like to come up with realistic ways to have the things I want to happen be happening, which is fun in its own way, sorta like a puzzle.
Tattoos could get into some interesting solutions too--I always sorta figured using hair dye could be a good way of tattooing, with the added benefit of being able to get new ink if you get bored with a design. But for something more permanent, I'd probably go into science fiction a bit, and maybe they get actual tats like people do, but it goes beyond just inking the skin and actually alters the hair follicles somehow so the hairs that grow are the color of the ink? That or maybe some sort of implantation of colored hairs could work.
I am still guilty of the whole "blush visible through fur" thing myself, maybe the cheek fur is thin enough for blush to still be noticeable or something?

Drain clogs though... that doesn't sound like fun. My guess is there's probably some convenient drain filter thing, probably pitched in infomercials by some furry equivalent of Billy Mays ( [F]s in the chat ) or Vince the Slap Chop Guy (those are the only two infomercial guys I know, oops) that just sits on top of the drain and catches all the hair before it gets into the drain pipe, maybe it has a little handle or string or something on it so it can be picked up and shaken into a trash can easily.
That or maybe they just don't shed as much as their animal counterparts do. Either way, they probably spend a lot more on shampoo than humans do!

Whatever approach we go with, it's cartoon animals, sometimes it's more about the visuals and having fun than the grounding in reality.
I just have a bit of fun with world-building details that only nerds care about and would like to get famous *just* to read fan theories about my universe based on one-off drawings and things I mentioned in some random comment I made on some backwater site like Weasyl in 2014.

god I do that so often!! I hate how much I procrastinate conversations :c
it never means I'm disinterested, just that I am easily exhausted by simple interactions haha

omg that hair follicle thing is perfect! like the tattoo modifies the skin and makes the fur their grow in a very certain color/pattern.. it's perfect >:]
the blush thing is like- anime logic. and personally I like it that way! blush on humans is so faint to begin in itself :/
like, have you ever SEEN someone blush? it just doesn't happen the same way cartoons make it. I'm very socially anxious and when I 'blush' it's just so very not-cute. my whole face just gets redhot and I get sweaty lol

that drain thing makes sense though, their modern conveniences would be made with the INTENT to handle all their animalistic extremes! and don't you dare forget that vince, who was also the shamwow guy, got into that legal trouble for fighting with a hooker! though from what I read she was the one who bit his tongue and started it. wild stuff!

but yeah bottom line, the cartoon logic is fun to explore :3

I have a love-hate relationship with simple comments for that very reason, it's a lot easier to type "thanks" to a generic compliment than it is to actually give a thoughtful response to a thoughtful comment, but I'd rather have thoughtful compliments I can respond to more... thoughtfully.

I think the only comments I truly dislike are weird role-play bait ones, and the ones where people basically self-advertise and I'm just, like, "my brother in Christ I don't know anything about your characters or universe so how am I meant to respond?", or the related phenomenon where someone compares something I did to some other thing I have zero familiarity with like a movie or creepypasta.

Oh, and that thing where you respond to someone thoughtfully and they're just like "yeah" or "okay", or they don't respond at all. You have no idea how many times I'll get a comment, I'll be happy to respond, even straight-up ask the commenter their thoughts sometimes, and just... silence.

The subject of body modification reminded me of another idea I had forever ago that sometimes pops up, but I never actually explore in my art... artificial antlers/horns, or reattaching shed antlers with some sort of adhesive. I have a few deer guys I draw with antlers at all times, even though realistically they would shed them and regrow new ones. This is something that is also relevant to that idea I have had for years but never actually pursued for a trans-male deer or antelope, would he have artificial antlers/horns that he wears?
(Related, would taking hormones cause him to grow his own horns? It's a fun idea to explore, I just worry that I couldn't handle such a character respectfully enough or I'd get things wrong and it would fall on the side of "stereotypical" and that's why I just never follow through with it.)

Now I feel like I'm going to get into a huge ramble about "visual language" and "stylization" that basically comes down to "artists exaggerate some things, like blushing, to better communicate the idea", so I'll just NOT do that this time.

Did he Slap Chop the hooker in the face because she didn't love his nuts? Should have used the Shamwow to clean up the evidence.
My manager at work legit looks like an older Vince Offer, it's hilarious. We actually showed him the Slap Chop commercial recently.

Why do I feel like I need to design a furry equivalent to one of those guys? As generic as it would be, I feel like a fox would have the necessary energy to be an infomercial announcer and able to get excited about something as simple as a towel, but something like a bear, lion, or some sort of bovine creature would definitely be loud enough to sell OxyClean or Mighty Putty...

I do find myself commenting less, because I'd rather the comment be thoughtful!
but it's really tough to do that consistently, so I end up just staying quiet lol
also wait people will compare your stuff to other media? I thought we all knew by now that that's rude Xb
for me I love all kinds of comments, even awkward ones! so long as it's generallypolite
I hate rude comments. I know it's best to ignore or whatever but I can't help taking shit personally

yooo those body modification ideas sound clever :o
reminds me of say, someone who wears wigs when they go bald!
and as far as the transgender angle- i know you have heard me say it before, but I LOVE that concept
and I'd be in full support if you ever decide to try it!

STOOOP these vince jokes are killing me 😭😭 please assign him a fursona i beg you
what did that guy say in response to the ads though? was he aware?

I find myself rarely commenting ever because I have a serious problem with saying stupid shit and then it's just out there on the internet forever. I had a huge problem with trying to seem thoughtful (and failing) back in the day.

Yeah I thought comparing one person's art/characters/ideas/whatever to another property was considered rude too, I get why people do it and it's usually not meant to sound this way but there's always just that feeling like it's some sort of accusation of unoriginality or outright plagiarism. Shit even I'm guilty of saying things give me Star Trek or Star Wars vibes sometimes...

Oh god the rude comments! I don't get those sort of comments anymore now that I'm not on DA, thankfully, but that sort of shit still stings even when you know the person is explicitly just a troll or being an asshole for the sake of being an asshole. I think I had ONE outright rude comment my whole time posting here. A couple snarky tongue-in-cheek comments here and there, a couple critiques that could have been worded better on art that was already years old when I was migrating my gallery here, but only one actual rude comment this whole time.

Since deer shed their antlers it makes me wonder if they'd just use their old antlers, and have something like denture adhesive but for antlers to keep them on. For creatures that aren't supposed to shed their horns naturally, would they have the broken horn reattached somehow if possible? It also makes me wonder if there would be any sort of market for getting bigger horns/antlers to impress the ladies...

I have yet to decide if transgender bovine should be a deer or an antelope, because both concepts seem like they could be cool and they're both animal types I like drawing, and I'll freely admit the idea of using horns/antlers to communicate masculinity is a lazy visual shorthand but it could be interesting to explore.

If I do weird infomercial huckster characters I really gotta decide what species to use and what sort of crap to have them shilling... maybe it's time to delve into the archives of unused designs and revive some long-forgotten character as someone that goes on TV and tries to convince people that they need to pay 19.99 for a microfiber towel they could find at Walmart for 3 bucks.

As for the manager, it didn't help that he was wearing a blue shirt the day we showed him Slap Chop lmao. It's cool to work somewhere that has managers that are actually people, especially since it's a shitty fast-food job so being there can really suck sometimes.

aw noo! I'm sure you're being hard on yourself :o
won't be lying if I say I am a little curious to see what you're talkin about though hehe

to a certain extent I think comparisons can be flattering, so you don't have to beat yourself up over it
I know there are certain comparisons I could get that would make me so hype ^^
I hate to say it but, knowing that you have also gotten rude comments makes me feel better
people will just say shit like that to anybody huh?
so true about trolls- like even though I know they're trying to get a reaction, that shit hurts :'u
I think we can all agree though, it's the genuine comments that can be the most painful.
Kind of like how when a kid says something mean, it hurts extra, because we all know kids are just brutally honest. WAY too brutally honest

the antler/horn glue is a cute idea, and I love the concept of getting bigger horns to impress the ladies lol, realistic. Antelopes have more interesting coat patterns, but deer are so lovely. you could also do that one kind of deer that has fangs? or even a mix tbh
I love doing weird hybrid furries :3

oh god what species even works best for an infomercial personality? that's a big decision

Now I have to balance not wanting to out myself with invoking the Streisand Effect... To put it simply, back in my days with a certain fandom, being something of a weird outcast IRL and having next to no idea how online interaction worked, I tried a bit *too* hard to fit in. I'd try to leave comments that seemed thoughtful or emotional and in at least one instance missed a HUGE detail that should have been glaringly obvious but wasn't and got dragged for it afterwards. I realized right away it was a huge "yeah that was stupid" thing (although I probably should have just said "yeah I fucked up and missed that, sorry" but I figured it was better to just move on) and just ignored the trolls and it seems to have been mostly forgotten, thankfully.

Yeah it's super delicate with comparisons, because there's a super fine line between "wow I can see the influences of [thing] here" and saying something that feels like an accusation of being derivative, unoriginal, or outright plagiarism. It's also super hard to avoid some comparisons sometimes, like any time you dabble in space fiction, there's going to be comparisons to Star Wars, Star Trek, or both.

I think everybody gets rude comments. Way less so on FA because I think everyone on the internet has acknowledged this site is cringe years ago and joining here just to troll makes you just as cringe as joining here to be a participant in the community--"those who lie with dogs will get fleas", as they say.
Shit sucks but what can you do? Honestly sometimes if it seems more "blunt" than rude I do a little bit of stalking on the person to see what they're about, because it might be something that's valid but very poorly worded, and sometimes I just lean into the joke and do a little bit of Suicide (or Kamikaze) By Words for the meme or to take the punch out of the comment--most trolls fuck off if they realize they're not gonna get an emotional reaction.

I do get the feeling that body modification could get truly insane in any Furry World, it gets crazy in the real world where there's more limitations, just imagine if a horse wanted to be a unicorn and got a horn straight-up implanted lol.
I suppose that's another option to combat horn/antler loss, implants...

HI DOMINIC MEPHITTO HERE WITH MORE STUPID IDEAS ABOUT INFOMERCIAL PITCH MEN CHARACTERS!

As far as infomercial personalities go, I really am torn between a "loud and confident" approach like Billy Mays and a "fast and energetic" approach like Vince Offer. Why not both, and let the two play off each other, either as a rivalry or as some sort of collaborative thing they do and make it some sort of buddy comedy thing... Species is a tough call because it's appealing to do a sort of expected route like a loud and confident bear and an energetic, smooth-talking and vaguely sleazy fox, but there are definitely both "expected" and "subversive" choices for both type.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

I could just make them both deer, as deer are equal part "loud and confident" and "fast and energetic", and when one of them gets hit by a car, the other can sell you the Mighty Putty, Oxy Clean, and Shamwows you'll need to repair your car and clean up the crime scene for only 19.99 plus shipping and handling. Look at how the Oxy Clean dissolves the blood stains! You'd never know this car was just used to perform vehicular manslaughter!

CALL NOW!

Nice to see a close-up front view of Kip's face here. ^^

Thanks!