Here is a story about my entrance into the fandom.
Though a series of events last semester, I came across the "Furry" fandom. How this happened at first was during ITM-450 Enterprise Networks. I brought the fox head from my holloween costume (I wanted my last North Campus Trick or Treat to go out with a bang!) and I told my group that if I was wearing the head, don't bother me. One of my group members, David, asked if I was a furry. At the time I had no idea what that was so I said no but was curious about the term "Furry"
As any procrastinator in the ITM program would do I started to research the term and what I came across intrigued me.
A Furry is a person who enjoys Art, Costumes, Stories, games, and all things in general of Anthropromorphic Animals or Animals with Human Characteristics. Digging in deeper and reading up on articles and watching videos about the fandom stuck intrest in me. This community is so supportive of one another and gives back to the community and does excelent charity work (of which I will explain more later). More research ensues!
After watching the above video from a person younger than me, I decided "Why not give it a try!" After all, The most supportive community of University Housing will be going away after I graduate so why not dive into something that is like how I want to be. Giving back to the community all while making people smile and have a good time.
I continued to set things up, watch some more youtube videos, I started creating a character of my own. Also known as a Furry Persona or Fursona for short. After long debates between a fox and wolf, the wolf won.
Why a wolf you may say? Well I have 5 good reasons.
So now I have my 'sona (to be inclusive, sometimes fursona is abbriviated to be inclusive of species without "fur") Species. Now how about a name...
After more quick research and a quick pole in a closed facebook group with friends on campus, I was debating between "Wolfletech" and "Wolflatech". I choose "Wolfletech." Wolf because I am not clever creating names, Tech because "T-LETonTECH" and wanted to include tech somehow. and "le" because it makes it roll of the tougue and forms "let" with tech to have the last 3 letters of T-LET and the begining our my last name, two things I am very proud about.
Now I have my species, I have my name, It's time to create a character! I found some free line art online on a site called FurAffinity that I could print and color so I ran over to CVS to get some color pencils and I started thinking of what to sketch. After consulting a better source of Artistic Information, Gabby, I was started on the way to create Wolfletech. So as we were hanging out in the South Hall Basement, I was coloring in the line art. I started with the tail, full black with a grey tip, This decision I made a week before as I ordered a wolf tail from a company and knew I wanted a black tail. I then realized that is enough black and grey would be my primary color, Green being the accents and Black being the highlights. I determined that Green is the color of a true leader and the mark on his back after thinking up a design while talking with Gabby, I came up with the back design. A collor going around the neck to a black triangle in the middle of his chest, pointing upwards tells him to always look up. The coller goes all the way to his back where the center of the back is a giant green stripe that leads up to a point near the bottom of his head. This tells his followers to follow him and also keep their heads up. The Green footpaws (proper term for feet) also mean leaders can reflect upon the path they leave behind, the things they have done, the things they want to do. The green mark on the back of his head means to always keep thinking as a leader. And lastly a green nose because going forward is always the best direction.
After finalizing his design, I drew him on other line art and also tried to create a digital reference sheet. After I realized I was not good at art, I came across you can have others make a reference sheet for you. So after a few days of shopping around, I came across this one person with a price in my range and contacted him. I gave him my designs, also different headshots and the template I use everywhere as my logo. They came up with the ref sheet below.
Finally after a month of miscelanious headshots and personal attempts at drawing, I have a beautiful image I can show to people. This all happened around my birthday, so Happy Birthday to myself! I felt proud being able to go from ideas and lines on a piece of paper to having a digital character drawn. I with no artistic ability was able to create a back story for Wolfletech and also have him be drawn. Wolfletech is who I inspire to be. He Is friendly, helpful, a leader of the pack, likes to volunteer(coaching and referee), also very talkative! All things I want to do with my life.
So from the begining, I dove into different avenues of Social media. I was on Twitter(@Wolfletech7), FurAffinity(Wolfletech), and also Reddit (Wolfletech) in the /r/furry subreddit. After Christmas I ended up joining a Telegram Chat group named "Safe Fur Work" which is a nice chat to chime in every once and a while.
The 4th of January, when I changed my avatar on Facebook as I rebrand everything I have, I get a message from a good friend from the ITM course inquiring about the Icon. After a few messages and my mind finally connecting the dots, I learned he was a furry as well. I know people! A few days later, I came across a post from RickyTiger asking if there were any other furs who live in Wisconsin also in college, I replied saying I am from wisconsin and also in college. So I threw my telegram out there (@wolfletech , see the pattern). We started messaging I found out he was from another UW School I am familar with from confrences. So we started talking and I also threw out there that if he ever needed to talk to somebody to feel free to message me. Well, he had something come up so we were talking and that weekend we skyped each other for like 2 hours and it was uplifting meeting him in person. This is where we talked about stuff and a little about the upcomming Wisconsin Furry Convention down in Brookfield, WI called Fur Squared. More on this later. So after that chat, we became good friends now message each other pretty much daily.
Even before all of this back in November, I would always walk into Fleming and see a picture on a door and always would look at it and say "That's cute" and proceed to walk up the stairs. When doing Thanksgiving break staff I took a closer look at the picture and noticed a badge slit in the top. My brain kicked into overdirve. Wait, I need to look him up. So, oh yea I also have Vine too (@wolfletech), looking up "Wavey", his name, I came across his vine account and I noticed similar features in the background that confirmed my suspicion. So throught the power of awkwardness, I liked everything I could find about this person. The intent was not to spam everything. It took me 2 more months to finally message him on FA (furaffinity) but by that time he was already home for break. So we coordinated a meetup just before school started. We met up, overbreak I learned how to make a yarn tail and made one for select people. We met, I learned he was an ICT major at least partically and we started talking about stuff relating to ITM. So we talked, he was cool, I didn't creep him out, everything is fine. Now everytime he walks past the desk, we end up talking about something.
I am uncertain when this happens but I was messaged on Steam, a gaming platform for computers, that one of my long time friends from the UK was also a furry. He inquired as he took a look at my logo and had a similar discussion like I had before. I am one of the few he knows well so we occasionally talk via skype about stuff, the internet, and also famous furries. This is awesome since I have known him since 2012 and have just realized he was a fur. So another person I can converse with.
After a few months and talking with all of them on a regular basis, I have the support of other I have always wanted. Support that can come from good friends. Which is not the same as the support I get from the family. Especially since through out k-12 I never had a perminant Best friend, I consider these people to be by best friends now.
Art is big in the fandom!
I have already noticed my creative side has been envigorated and by creating Wolfletech, I proved to myself that I can actually do art. However, I am not great at all but at least I am trying. I really have shown an interest in the various art styles and stories that people have created. It makes you feel even better when you watch an artist and like their style and you have them make something for you. There are also plenty of opportunities for free art, as people practice. I've done a few for others as I improve my abilities. However, I still can't "photoshop" things well.
After obtaining a reference sheet, I have had opportunities to get various art done and different styles of art comissioned. One that I am waiting for right now is what is called a badge and It has Wolfletech holding a handheld radio, a piece that I am very excited about because it brings both of my hobbies together and also Amateur Radio is very popular in the fandom. Art that brings both of my passions together. This is a digital artwork piece that she will also laminate and send to me. I am SUPER Excited about this.
So after realizing I hate physical media other than doodles, I took part of my baseline plus and bought an art drawing tablet after I realize I enjoy drawing on my touch screen. I have used it a bit and am still learning on how to actually use it. When I get time to use it! Below are all the works I have worked on on the tablet and art people have made for me:
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| Speedpaint by Your_Fluffy_Pet | Derp by Adezu |
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| Headshot By GodtierMarsupial | Sketch by Villosus |
| Stuff I have made | |
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| Wolfletech attempt | Ricky Tiger |
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| Hikyuuri (Work in Progress) | Bret (On touch screen),first Drawing |
Conventions are the most popular events in the fandom
So the weekend of the Feburary 26th through the 28th, 2016 was a Furry convention down in Brookfield that I attended. I attended this with my friend from Stout, Alex and we rode down together. The entire trip was very fun, very emotional, and very memorable.
The entire convention is contained within the Sheraton Brookfield. The convention had 791 Attendees (790 others than me!) and 234 Fursuiters in the parade and $9001 dollars were raised for the HAWS Animal Shelter. The conventions are a place where other furries can get together and hang out in a nonstressful enviroment. It is also a place where fursuiters can wear there suits without having a handler near by watching out for people, as most people at the conventions understand it is hard to see inside the suit. There are also panels people can attend and share info to other attendees as well as a dance competition, varios games and people chan show off their suits in the parade. There are currently only a few cons in the area and the 2nd largest is in Chicago called Midwest Fur Fest or MFF. Because of this, Fur Squared is a reletively small convention but the fun was never more ramped up as seen during my dance competition video below:
I will say that personally, Fur Squared was an emotional rollercoaster for me. I did not know what to expect being my first convention. There was an 18 hour period on Saturday that went from "This is AMAZING!!!" to "No one is paying attention to me!" to "I DON'T WANT TO LEAVE!" The positive turning point of my weekend happened in two parts. When heading to dinner with Ricky and his friends, one of the Sears employees as we walked through the store to get to the food court asked us what was going on over at the hotel. I watched as they explained what a furry was to the employee and he was honestly interested in the idea of the convention. It brought a whole new perspective on the fandom for me. It gave me hope for a better future in the fandom. It gave me the idea that not everyone has a bad view of the fandom. My emotions were finally leveling off for the best.
The incline started at the Dance Competition. I ended up sitting on the ground so I could get a great view to record and I was watching while recording. I was looking forward to Wavey's performance. I met Wavey at school while I was still getting into the fandom as I noticed a badge on his door(It took me a month of staring at it almost daily to notice it had a slit at the top of it, making it a badge!) because I knew someone in the competition. Wavey is the blue jagurar with variable hair color, most of the time its rainbow though. So after verifying the badge belonged to him by being observant, I messaged him on FA and we have gotten to know each other ever since.
So back to the dance, I was watching Wavey do his routine and I as I watch him he does a flip, lands it and the crowd reacts. I was super impressed. With the mix he had made, the first and second flips and throwing his hair, I realized how much fun everybody was having, how much fun I was having! How much judgement was in the room...NONE! Nobody was criticising anybody else. The community was very supportive in that room, the way things should be. If only this feeling would have lasted longer than 2 minutes. Also the fact that Wavey was enjoying himself was the cherry on top.
This was my turning point. I no longer feel ashamed to be a furry. I added fun to my furry vocabulary. To be a furry to me is to be a part of the community who have a civilized level of fun all while appreciating the things in life we all have in common. Antropromorphic Animals.
The Helpful and Caring Wolf
My fursona is Wolfletech. I am a proud furry, I love the furry fandom, and someday I will be a proud fursuiter, member of the community, giving back to the community and hopefully use my suit to inspire kids to read better and inspire them to be a member if this community we call life! I have a long way to go to reach this goal but it is closer than I have gotten to a start than being outside the fandom.
If you read this far, You don't know how much I appreciate it. It has taken me days to fully write this with care taken in keeping my emotions in tact. Writing this straight into HTML code has accererated my involvement into the fandom. For once in a long time I feel this is a place I belong, where I can expand my horizions while supporting others in the process. I am happiest around other people who are happy. This is Tyler howling to happiness!