New Fursona

Higher tier Patrons got to see this back in June as a "First Look" (so for them, sorry for the double post!) Gotten a lot further since this was written and will be sharing the rest of the updates soon.

I promised you higher pledgers access to more in-depth secret info, so here ya go! You get to be the first to know what I'm working on over on the side and get to learn a little more about me ;)

When all those "fursona appreciation" memes started going around on Twitter last month, I was in a bind- I had way too many characters that all had a piece of me in them and I related to them all differently. People are dynamic and change a lot throughout their lives, so it's pretty common for people to outgrow or change past identities, associations, and interests every once in awhile. I love having a variety of identities and designs to play with through each of my characters, and many have been experienced (or soon will be) in costume form as well. But I had been thinking a lot about how I chose to represent myself in the fandom for the past few months in fact, ever since my life starting going in a new direction back in January with a change in relationship status, living situation, and career focus.

At first I just wanted to update the design of one of my earliest characters, Tusami the dragoness. She was technically still around, just quite underused and unloved; I just didn't have much of a use for her nor had much of a connection I once so strongly had. But as I was coming up with ideas for how to update her design, I realized that I would be much happier re-inventing her completely, much as I am re-inventing myself in real life.

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So here's a bit of funny history about Tusami: I invented this character around 2003; I was invited to go to the YMCA pool with the friend, Catherine, the first friend I had made at my new middle school in sixth grade. She loved playing make-believe and writing fan-fiction for her favorite TV shows, inventing her own characters that would interact with the main characters. I had been making my own stories and characters for Digimon at this time, inventing what my siblings and I would look like and what monster partners we would have. Keep in mind this was before I was active on the internet (mostly because of my age, I'm about 12 or 13 years old) but even MySpace was not invented yet or was just launched, so this was the first time I knew someone else who made up their own characters too and that was super cool.

So we're swimming in the pool and getting to know each other more, looking for things to do in the water. I love pretending I'm an animal pretty much all the time, (particularly a dolphin when I'm in the pool), and Catherine came up with the idea that we should pretend that she is her cool samurai character named Kamakazi (Kama for short) and they meet me along their journey and I can be whatever I want. I decided to pick being a dragon, because I love dragons... but I didn't really know how to invent a character on the spot. So I roleplayed being a dragon that had severe memory loss, lol, who couldn't remember their name or how they got into their current situation (mostly because I couldn't think of anything). As their character interacted with mine, I slowly invented more details about it and we kept the roleplaying interactions next time we went to the pool, and then at school on the playground, and then passing notes/comics/drawings to each other in class, and on AOL Instant Messenger.

I started calling my friend "Kama" so much that I just started calling her that in everyday life. I went by "Shelly"  at this point in my life but I needed a name for my character and didn't know what to pick at all. Kama suggested I make a cool Japanese name because that's where she got inspiration for hers (she was really into anime and got me to watch a bunch). I didn't really know how to look up Japanese names or their meanings so I just asked her to pick a name for me. She typed the word "Tusami" and told me it was Japanese for tidal wave. I said that sounds cool I'll pick that. It wasn't until years later did I understand that she was trying to type the word "Tsunami" and didn't know how to spell it, and I just assumed it was correct because "it's in Japanese" hahaha!

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So Tusami the dragon was born. He was a male human but was cut by the claws of a dragon on his arm which caused him to transform into a red dragon and lost his memory in the process. Then we got another mutual friend, Casey, to make a character for himself which was a male witch he named Catome. We made some of the most fanfiction-y silly decisions, like all of our characters were siblings and Samurai Jack was our father. I changed Tusami's story to be that he and Catome got lost in the woods as small children and they found a secret cave with a ying-yang shaped pool: half red and half blue. They each fell in to a different side and obtained dragon shapeshift powers because that makes sense. And then in 2006 the story eventually changed to this [link] and I made Tusami female so she'd be more "me".

Want to see some old Tusami art? Of course you do!

-This is original human Tusami with the cut on his arm 2004: [link]
-And this has never been put online before, I just found it in my old middle school binder the other day of human Tusami, son of Samuari Jack, lol 2004: [link]
-This drawing was not by me, but done by Catome and I found it in the same binder and think it's funny 2004: [link]
-Old Tusami, he changed to be silver instead of red because that was my favorite color at the time 2004: [link]
-First colored/digital Tusami, added black markings 2005: [link]
-First official reference sheet, changed to flame markings 2006: [link]
-Most recent reference sheet 2012: [link]

Stupid bonus fact, bunch of people in the early online dragon communities used this emoji for happy dragon faces: ^.-.^ and I wanted to show more depth to the nose so I made up this one as an alternative: ^.=.^ and then I also started drawing Tusami with two lines on his snout to match, and also because I had trouble with perspective on dragon faces from the front. So old Tusami has what we nicknamed "bread nose" because it looks like lumpy loaf of bread apparently, lol. Like these ones here: [link] [link] Later I added a marking across the nose and made the ridges less weird (see recent ref) and to this day people STILL use my stupid emoji XD

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So Tusami was mostly a silly role play character turned fursona when I was introduced to the furry fandom in high school. But she had many things I loved about her: transformation powers, being a freakin' dragon, and my favorite colors black, silver, and blue. But there were a couple things that bothered me, mostly her name was... well it's funny, but also kind of cringy. And I really did not like the idea of putting ears on my reptilian-like dragons, but I really loved how much ears show emotion on animals, so my stupid weird compromise was to create Tusami with... movable horns. They would angle up or down to show emotion. And her origins were pretty silly as well. She wasn't originally developed as a personal identity and sorta tweaked a bunch over time to fit both the weird stories my friends and I tried to make together by combining all our ideas and yet be something that *I* wanted for her. I don't think I've ever been completely happy and likely never will be.

I even considered selling her design. But there's so much history there I don't think I could bring myself to do it.

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So let me tell you a little about my new design! First I want to address that Riley the German shepherd dog (and CanineHybrid version) isn't going away; she's like my personal mascot and the embodiment of my username. She was definitely developed to be my best attempt at an identity for myself from the beginning; I was going through a bunch of silly phases in my life like ya do and trying to find myself. I really identified strongly with dogs at that time and it sounds stupid but I really longed for a fursona with ears because how much it adds to artistic expression, which is half the point of fursonas. Boy was high school and early college some special times << I still love her lots but I haven't really drawn her or done anything with her at all lately.

New design was actually inspired a lot by the idea of adding ears to a dragon without them actually being too much like mammalian ears, because really only mammals have big ol' ears to begin with. Everything else in the animal kingdom is pretty much holes in the side of the head and they're not always even that visible or function the same way. So have a weird compromise; new dragon has fins along the jawline supported by flexible spines that stretches along the backside of the earhole to create a way to funnel in sound. The first spine is the most flexible and can be moved independently to adjust for sound input. You can call them ears if you want, but it's definitely the feature I spent the most time on to look nice and to not be mammal ears slapped on a reptilian creature. They aren't quite like traditional dragon head/ear fins either as I wanted to give them a neat shape and function that would stand out.

One thing I really like about dragons in general is how much more unique they are in comparison to other dragons than among members of other species. For example, when an artist is offering black and white headshot sketches, I try to provide characters that are more identifiable without needing colors or markings. Another trick is the silhouette test- is the character identifiable if it's just a solid back shadow (and also is it readable, not overwhelmingly busy or unique with extra features manipulating its shapes that you can't even tell what it is)? Most characters without markings don't really stand out, like in a lot of cases the markings and colors are what really makes the character. Dragons have that problem less than other species, and I think that's also one of a million reasons they are so popular- they are very creatively flexible.

The next biggest addition was something I was debating for awhile- the fin down the back of the head and neck. I want to create a design that is unique and interesting, but also practical. Best way I have always determined this is trying to relate to it, imagine that I am this character and what aspects of its design bring challenges to everyday life? For example, a creature with kickass giant spikes down its back like Godzilla will never be able to lay flat on its back (or not without difficulty, being uncomfortable if not harmful, may look strange to draw, and they wouldn't probably be able to have anything lay on top of them). So sharp/hard/big spikes on the back would be out since I want to have a somewhat cuddly dragon, lol. I originally sketched out a bunch of small thin spikes down the back of the head/neck, but for funsies gave the character something of a mohawk (because I sometimes rock a hawk in real life) and I really liked it. So mohawk fin has been added, and also given the ability to be fold-able, which adds both practicality and emotion. She looked... a little naked without something there. I didn't originally give her head horns, but I added a few little spikes so I'm going to keep playing around with that. Still not sure about the nose scales.

Other things in her design are unique shaped wings, I want to add some arm spikes and scales, and I determined early on I wanted to make an anthro version without boobies, because just like the ears, things like hair and boobs on dragons has always bothered me. So that's going to be an interesting challenge, because I do want her to be read as "female" still. Her head is of course very dinosaur-like because dinosaurs. So I threw up a bunch of different sketches to show how she's slowly being tweaked over time, this is my normal design process. I expect to continue to work on this slowly over the next few months or so and I'll share how it progresses further. This is already way too long and has been taking me like three days to type out so stopping now!


ARRRRTTT