How did YOU get into the fandom?

[Vergil]

Okay, so we're all furs here, right?  So, how did you get started?  What started the whole chain of events that years later had you saying "I'm a fur"?

My first experience was when I was around 8, when I  Saw a movie called "The Elm-Chanted Forest" .  I began to fantasize about forming friendships with some of the characters, and even developed a small crush of Fifi Le Fuchs, a cute vixen.

When I was sixteen, these kind of feelings still remained.  Then, I saw MTV's Sex2k, and rather than being repulsed by it, I thought "These are my kinda people!"

Shortly after, I joined furryMUCK, implemented my furriness into my RPG Making, and well, here I am.

How about you?

[Jadnar]

Well, it was a certain cat named Spot. We met up with her in North Carolina on Halloween night. She just happens to be black with a white spot on her chest, her name's sake.

Anyway, I started drawing when I got up here in Maine.  I started drawing cat anthro's about 5-6 years ago. I expanded to wolves, and lizards.

I started playing with computers about 4 years ago, and I became adicted. Then about 3 years ago I discoved the internet. I really didn't know what to do with it so I just did some minor stuff like talk at a forum and check my e-mail.

Well When I moved into my new house we had Internet full time. Which ment more time to explore. That was when I found the Furry Fandom, and found I wasn't alone.  

Well thats me '>

[Benjamin]

As a little kid, I had always liked animals. Had a lot of plushies as I was growing up and my mother often said I had too many of them already.
When I was pretty young and learning to read, I recall having a fascination with Richard Scarry's books and I'd pretend that I was one of the creatures in the little words of anthro animals that he had created. I think we still have those books around here somewhere.
When I was about nine or ten, I did a comic about my pet hamster, George. It was... odd. A little while after, I also started drawing a psychotic rodent by the name of "The Killer Teddy Bear Hamster From Hell" in typical pre- and early-teen fashion.
When I was about thirteen or fourteen, I got into role-playing games with my then friends. The first one I tried out was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness, which was out long before the television series and movies starring those same turtles. It was a very cool, mostly anthro animals game. Soon after I got into that, I started drawing the characters that I enjoyed playing.
I had played various RPGs throughout my high school years, drawing my characters that I obsessed over. The vast majority of my characters were some sort of anthro animal, and most were feline. During high school, my love for tigers grew and I'd end up drawing them quite a bit.
In 1994, The Lion King came out, and I was quite astonished with how nicely done that this movie was. It was at about this time when I made my transition to favoring lions in my heart. That fall, I was starting university and had bought my first own computer, a 486. At Christmas, I had gotten a 14.4 K modem, which was decent for that time, and on the day after Christmas — December 26, 1994 — I managed to log onto a furry BBS in Toronto, called The Trap Line, and that was pretty much my first foothold into the furry fandom. I didn't really understand what it was about at first, since there was nothing there to really explain what it was all about, but after some time, I pieced it together within my head. That winter, I had also gotten onto FurryMUCK, but seeing as my connection through the university was a raw telnet configuration, it was several months before I could make real good use of it. The early months were quite frustrating, playing a TLK character and not knowing where the cowardly spoofed insults were coming from. Dealing with raw telnet just made it all that much worse. Once I had gotten a better connection and more know-how with how to deal with MUCKing, there was no looking back.
 
Ramble, ramble, ramble...
 
Benjamin

[Ariela]

I've been RPing since middle school...  sometimes anthro, sometimes not.  At the end of my senior year in high school, I met someone through RP who introduced me to Taps, because that was all he knew about.  From there, I've slowly learned more and met more and more furs....   basically,   MUCKing gave me an escape from...   yucky stuff.  After I started making more friends, I did more research, learned more about the furry communtiy...  and sort of found a new place to call home, somewhere that I've always felt comfortable in my own skin, so to speak.  ^_^

[Fianna]

I saw that thing on Sex2K...and found out what the term was for furriness.  I'd always felt more kin to animals than humans, and I'd been drawing people with pointy ears and tails as far back as I can remember.  Cats eyes were popular with me, too.

~Fianna

PS...Ariela...fangs do NOT ruin a cute pout... they just make it less kissable

[Sumarra]

There were a lot of factors that led me to furriness. As a kid I often pretended to be an animal (usually a cat) and I seemed to understand my pets far better than my own family.

So when I got into dragons around 11 years old I started drawing anthro ones. Later when I got online around 1995 I roleplayed one on dalnet for several years and did a lot of artwork, even some anthro animals without knowing there was a whole following for it. That caught the attention of one kitty named Sparkling Kat and she invited me over to Yiffnet back in 2000, then Taps shortly after.

Since there there's no going back for this kitty! hehe.

[Firestorm Six]

My main reason to get involved is basically my intrest in cartooning and anthropomorphic caracters, and art in general. I do lots of other art work besides furry art, but always like anthro art. and perhaps because there is a lot of great people in this fandom. I don't participate in RPG, Mucking, but i occasionally chat on ICQ . other than that , it's the art .  

I've had this philosophy for some time that I like to call Neo-Zorro (Zorro being short for Zorroastrianism).  There's a lot more to it than this, but the overall message is that good and evil are eternal and that nothing is ever purely one or the other.  I used Road Runner as an example of this a lot, citing how Wile E. was trying to kill the RR so he could survive and how RR always evaded Wile E. by subjecting him to pain.  The theme of good and evil was, and still is always my favorite subject to write about, and the furry world always seemed to allow Neo-Zorro to be perfectly demonstrated and defined.

I guess over time I started to understand the characters in my stories more than I did the people I know in real life (you'll notice that most of my characters are drug-free and virgins and all the people I know in RL are far from it).  Looking back it feels like I was always a furry (I've had a certain kindredship with felines since I was three), but I don't think I ever willingly considered myself one until about a year ago.
That's when I discovered the internet, found a news article featuring Topfox and Cataroo.  I read over all the quotes about being furry and thought it made the most perfect sense imaginable.  

I feel like I'm leaving something out, but for the life of me I don't know what.  Anyway, thanks for letting a lousy newbie spill out his inner secrets like he's known all of you forever.   '> Its been a pleasure.

[ObliviousAlly]

When I was younger, I was always into cartoons and pretending I was someone else. I used to run around the house on all fours, with a dish towel tucked in the pack of my pants like a cat or a dog. Plus, I was a hyperactive child. '>

I never knew what 'furry' was. I was always into that kind of stuff, though. TMNT, Slyvanian Families, My Little Pony, all of that stuff. When the Sonic games came out, I was -big- into those. And I started reading the comics and when my library got internet, I found chatrooms and then Yerf (or, what used to be Rat.org) and the whole thing opened up to me. I never knew about the fetishes or anything like that until I was well into drawing furry art and whatnot. Didn't really bother me much, though. I mean, if that's what you want to do, do it. I ain't gonna stop you. '>

I've always felt akin to animals. Cats mostly, but now that I don't have one, I've got my gerbil babies. Furriness, to me, it more or less a spiritual thing. It's there, even though it's not really obvious. Unless I'm wearing my tail. '> And people in school weren't even bothered by that after the first few times they saw it, no one knew what a furry was.

My mom thinks furries are great. She's really open minded, her and my grandma. I'm really glad that I can sit down and explain the good and weird sides to the fandom without them freaking out or anything.

And it's always good to have a close furry friend. Mine is KeeperOfDreams. She's great. Even though she's more furry than I am and she's got that whol were thing going on. I probably wouldn't be as much into the fandom if it weren't for her. ^_^

So there's my story, if it made any sense. ^_^;;;

[HollyAnn]

I've always drawn animals when I was a kid...whether it was Snoopy or My Little Ponies or my brother's Donny the Stegosarus and Sammy the (rubber) Snake, I would draw them all the time and I would make little story books out of them...with a guest appearance of K.I.T.T. from time to time '>

As I got older, I drew TONS of cats and winged unicorns and stuff...I doodled them all the time...until I was swept away with TMNT madness '>  I started drawing them around Jr. High (as well as characters from the Canadian cartoon called "The Raccoons" because my brother worked at the animation studio), and soon, I got myself the Paladium book "Teenage Muntant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness".  I was getting more interested in Role-Play and I was DYING to create a panther character, since black panthers are one my all-time favourite animals '>  And, one day, when I was finishing up one of my winter exams when I was in Grade 9, I created my panther character, Pantera Atra-u.

I didn't really know it was considered "furry art" back then..I didn't even know furry art existed O.o  All throghout high school, I drew more and more of Pantera, but around my Grades 12 and 13th year, I was drawing less and less (it was around this time, I decided I hated art, and purposely flunked art class cuz it was all the same things I already knew and found it to be boring...either that, or the art teacher thought of different ways to make me flunk certain things, but I won't get into that now...that's a different story) '>

I quit drawing altogether in Grade 13 and even if I did draw, it was very little.  I taped Animaniac shows and would pause the machine so I could learn how to draw expressions and hands and stuff...which also led to doing the same thing with Disney's Gargoyles, and, on the rare occation, Sailor Moon '>

I drew practically nothing but Gargoyles when I was in college and my friends thought I was weird cuz...I guess I didn't look like a person who would be drawing Gargoyles '>

Anyways, time went on, and my brother got the Internet in mid-1997 and he discovered Furcadia.  I joined Furc a few months after him, and at one point, I thought "hey, that'd be cool to draw one of our friends!"  And I did...and I thought that I was the only one who thought of this idea...that is, until I discovered there were archives out there dedicated to Furry Art '>  That's how I was introduced to Furry Art and the fandom...

One of my friends told me about conventions and such, but I was still living at home at the time, so I couldn't go to any...I wished that I could.  He also told me that my art was good enough that people would want to buy it, but I didn't sell any for two reasons: 1. I didn't think I was good enough and 2. I was still living at home and my parents didn't want me to do interactions with people from the net O.o  So....after I got married, I started selling my art, and attending conventions along the eastern coast (Anthrocon, C-ACE)

And that's my story '>  The End '>

[Job]

Well, I can't say i was born a furry. I met a guy who was into tthe fandom who was part of the same student abassador trip i was on to australia. while there he drew alot of pictures i liked alot, so i got interested. When i got home, i checked out alot of websites and such and got interested in drawing myself.  So i've only been a furry for about 8 months

[seanshorty]

I got into it when i was 12. After watching that animorph series on tv and having childhood experiences of sorta pretending to be an animal. I checked the internet for this stuff, looked throught the sites, and got into it.

[Jadnar]

Ah, Animorphs. I loved the books, Hated the TV show. I used to read a book a day when I had them, then I gave them all away. But ya, Animorphs was a very good idea.

[Arphalia]

Oldest anthro character art I've got with a date on it says I was four. I suppose I've always enjoyed the creative aspect of anthro characters more than humans. Grew up on Watership Down, Secret of NIMH, The Muppet Show.. anthro stuff was everywhere, even if it wasn't really outright classified as such to me back then.

Got really into TaleSpin when it came out. Sent in a little short story and pictures to go with it. Started up a long correspondence with one of the creators of the show as a result. Got my first heads up on the fandom there, but I was still rather clueless as to what he was talking about. He wasn't outright against the fandom, but just told me to be a little careful. I was about 14 then, so yeah, I could see his point, though I'm sure he had no clue how little access I would have had at that time to the fandom anyways.

Couple years out of high school I learned of the actual fandom and was somewhat formally introduced by a friend whom I no longer speak to. Still stuck with the whole furry thing though as I had met a number of really cool people.

Compared to a lot of people I'm still fresh to the scene, but I'm starting to feel as if I'm in 'early middle age' given how many since have come to find it.

Since finding the fandom I've since put anthros back into my art focus, made a website for the whole ordeal, do FurBid and the archives, commissions and have plans to mix my art and writings to make something of a graphic novel eventually. And.. thats it! o.o

[Patrick Rangerwolf]

Animation was what got me into it, but I didn't hear about furry until about 2 years ago.  As a kid, I liked pretending I was a dog.  I always drew anthros before I drew anything else.

I'm a huge Disney fan (favorite film- Dumbo).  Ducktales and Tail Spin were my favorite shows.  I couldn't go a day without watching them.  I also love the old MGM and Warner Bros. Cartoons.  I'm also a fan of the Australian toons, Skippy of Bushtown and Blinky Bill.  I'm also a big fan of The Secret of NIMH.  As for the actual fandom, I discovered the sites such as Furnation and saw other people the drew like me.  After seeing a show on the Sawtooth Pack, I became a wolf aficianado and that's how I started writing about my hero wolf stories.

It wasn't until very recently that I gave into being a furry completely and have become a lifestyler, so it's now more than art to me.  I think being a lifestyler helps me get to know my characters better.  Yet, the art aspect is the most fun part of the whole thing, especially since I'm basically addicted to drawing.

Thanks for listening.  I hope to run into some of you at this year's AC. '>

[Bear Paw]

It's hard too pin down an exact moment that defined my path. When I was born my parents also got a basset hound as a pup. We sought of got along great according too my parents. We sought of raised each other in a way. Later in life I was intrested allot in were creatures the subject fascinated me and I spent allot of time in the school library, This is when I developed my liking for anthro art. After that I did some RPG It was here I played a character I decided too add allot of bear traits too it. The first time I played the character I knew it was more than that and from that point on its part of my personality totaly without question. It felt too right I felt better just being this way. Later I started too look on the net and bing found out about furry and well here I am. A very long road and sounds much more intresting than it seemed at the time.

[sniffswind]

rack up another starter courtesy of Eastman and Laird.  I still have the palladum RPG and a full set of books.  I also have my first anthro piece, as well.

I have two of mu older pieces at my
Oldies section at VCL

the full set is in my folder here at furtopia

[Chaz_wolf]

Quote

rack up another starter courtesy of Eastman and Laird.  I still have the palladum RPG and a full set of books.  I also have my first anthro piece, as well.

I didn't know that Sniffs.. I thought it was someone else.. Anyways I got read of most of my stuff..
With moving and have my apartement turned over...
I don't have much stuff left.

Talk to you soon hun

*hugs and licks*

Your wolfy
Chaz

[Katarina]

Well, I've always loved animals.  Many of the cartoons and toys of my childhood were based on animals.  In around Fourth grade, I began drawing a lot of cartoon animals.  This died down a few years later as I set out to master drawing humans.  It wasn't until I was in college that I started drawing animals again - this time semi-realistically.

I "discovered" the furry fandom through my best friend, who had gotten online a few years before me and was already entrenched in the Redwall and TaleSpin fandom, which have strong animal backgrounds.  One day she showed me Yerf.  After that, I was hooked!

Kat

[Cravin]

For me it started in elementary school.  I played the mule in my schools christmas play.  I did that part for three years untill the costume didn't fit any more, I complained loudly when I had to play as Joseph.  In high school I was the lion in Wizard of Oz the producer of our play said I was the best lion she had had but in retrospect how many had she had?  I graduated high school and then got a job as Barney at a small time amusment park untill the people that owned the right to Barney started sueing every one because the people that made the suite didn't pay roylties.  Then I saw MTV's sex2k and thats when I put it together but I really couldn't do anything about it then.  My family is verey conventional in fact when my brother droped a few hints he was Bi my father made a appointment with the local shrink.  Things have lighted up alot latly but it took a near death experence to do it, last year my father had two open heart operations both with in about three days the second was to fix a mistake from the first one.  He has become more receptive to ideas but I still feel this one is outside his grasp.

Then wile I was surfing the net I found all of you and felt better.

*curls up in a chair and pets and purs with my cat*

[Fianna]

Cravin you're lucky you still have your dad...I'm not sure how mine would have reacted to my being furry...tho he probly wouldn't have minded me being bi, I'm not sure.  I'll never find out.

Fianna

[Cravin]

@Fianna Yes I am verey lucky I am sorry about your father.

I haven't told my father yet I am biding my time untill it feels right.

Though I have begun making my first suite, mabe as it takes shape it will help ease the idea in slowly.

[AladTheAnthroMeerkat]

Well, how do i explain this?

*cough* TLK *cough*...

Well, when i saw timon in that movie, i pretty much had immediately become smitten with meerkats. I had been drawing since '91 but my focus as far as chars were concerned was mainly on dinosaurs, reptiles and the like... I had done a few furs, but it was Timon that had me hooked, and i ended up doing a number of pics of him (all the good ones i kept - i trashed the rest...).

For the last several years however, i decided to develop my own style instead of aping other peeps, so i started tinkering with fur effects and shading and stuff... (needs help with being more punctual in his description...)

When my sis got her comp, i was testing it out, looking for pages that suited my interest and i landed up on Kimya's Nursery, and for a good long while, i thought i was in heaven. She used to have an EZBoard on her site, so i wanted to post on it to tell her what a great job she did on her site - only one problem: You need a membership (like with every other BBS system) - and i didn't have an EZBoard username! So i just made one up on the spot joining the community, and i happened to be the name that i now use for my char.

By the time i found out about the LK Fanart Message Board and Ben's Furry.ca BBS, i pretty much had my char down pat - He was to be an anthro meerkat (duh...) and his main purpose for existing would be to have as much fun as possible, either with friends or not. I'm not really that good with RP'ing and a brief tryst with the LK MU* kinda left a sour taste in my mouth about mods who are extreme purists to the nth degree, so i don't bother with mucks anymore...

My desc is a no brainer:
I have moderately long dirty blond hair, white patches around my myopic blue eyes (which is why i wear glasses), my fur is a bright dusky orange, my markings are brown, my hands (from the forearm down) and my feet (same with the calves) and tail tip are black and i wear the patented black "Happyface" t-shirt by Nirvana and a pair of cut-off jean shorts.

So there you have it: How i got here in the first place...  '>

[WhiteShepherd]

WhiteShepherd started out on Furry Muck and Taps.  I think a lot better enviorment for exploring ones self and fantasies.  It was interesting... I'll leave it at that. ^-^

[ayame28]

Always liked animals and sci-fi.  '>