Notes on designs for digitigrade footwear for fairytale animal settings

The forest is hospitable, so generally shoes would be seen as seasonal or trade related protective wear. For instance, if it were muddy or rainy or snowy you'd of course have shoes or boots. If you were a woodcutter, or some kind of fighter, you'd likely have sturdy boots or covet them. If you lived in a rocky or mountainous or less hospitable place (or a busy town) you'd likely wear some kind of shoe, too. But if you were just picking berries in nice weather in the forest where the duff and soil are soft you might go bare pawed.

Bandits covet good shoes but with so many different animal folk it's almost impossible to steal them. Not only would a mark have to be your size they'd have to be the same species for the general construction of the boot to even work. They'd likely operate by hand-me-down boots in their families, unless a sizeable and wealthy Bandit clan had its own cordwain and some reliable source of leather. Otherwise, it's likely that camp followers would be making simple turnshoes in their local ethnic styles and plying other cottage industry trades to keep the Bandits shoed.

Similarly, the most remote and rural folk would also wear simple and highly ethnically styled turnshoes, moccasins, and things like that as necessary, all adapted to their own environments, physiological needs, and aesthetic values.

Paw wraps are something a lot of rural and martial or Bandit types would likely use, as they're simpler and faster to make than socks and also can be made from scraps. In the summer cotton or linen could be used, and in the winter, wool and flannel could be used for warmth. They can also be used in addition to socks, to supplement their warmth in the winter or in the colder parts of the wood and in the mountains. I based this style of paw wrap on Fußlappen.