Below is my original fursona page from before I had a fursona, showing all my fursona ideas and stuff. Saved exactly the way it was, a time capsule of my quest for a fursona! It's almost as long and boring as my newer fursona pages!
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Ok, to make it quick, I don't actually have a fursona yet. I sometimes change my mind about whether I even want one, or whether it's even possible to make one that I'll be happy with, or whether I should have two fursonas, etc. And I am *constantly* changing my mind about what it should look like, even the species and colors, or whether it should be just one species or a shapeshifter or a hybrid/chimera of some kind, etc...
Nevertheless, here I shall chronicle my epic journey to find a fursona, through many failed attempts. Mostly they don't even have pictures, just boring descriptions.
Nevertheless, here I shall chronicle my epic journey to find a fursona, through many failed attempts. Mostly they don't even have pictures, just boring descriptions.
Attempt 1
Not a very serious one, but one time I found some free lines and decided to try making a fursona. I don't have that image anymore, it was a looong time ago, probably about 2007 or earlier, so I mostly forget it. I don't even remember if it was a dog or wolf or what, but it was mostly white with some black and brown markings, including stripes and spots on the legs (one leg had black stripes, one brown stripes, one black spots and one brown spots), and some music notes and other silly markings relating to my interests (I quickly decided that I don't want any markings like that).
Attempt 2 (kind of)
I almost forgot about this, but sometime in about summer 2009 I had thought of making a contest on FP to design my fursona. But I couldn't afford a big prize so probably no one would enter, and then I thought I would rather make my own fursona anyway, so I never actually made the contest and I forgot about it (and ended up giving up on making a fursona for the next few years).
So I didn't actually design anything at this time, but when I was writing the list of things I wanted and didn't want in a fursona, it helped me get a better idea of what kind of things I.. wanted and didn't want in a fursona. That makes sense, ok. And looking at it now (I had the text file saved on a website), surprisingly a lot of it still applies, and in some ways it's closer to my newer ideas of a fursona than attempts 3-5.
Here is the list from back then (I left some things out and reworded some things 'cause they sounded dumb):
* things i like *
~~ cheetahs, hyenas, coyotes, Whippets and other sighthounds, Dobermans, skunks, opossums, rats, anteaters, Fell Ponies, Friesians, Thoroughbreds, donkeys, falcons/hawks, crows, crocodiles, velociraptors/utahraptors/etc, archaeopteryx, hybrids of different animals
~~ fangs, long tails, two tails, long ears, feathers, long thin spikes, tentacles
~~ striped tails, black and white stripes, spots, dark spots around eyes, piebald or pinto patterns, stars
~~ black, white, dark gray, brown, golden-brown, blue, purple
~~ a combo of dark and light colors
~~ gold/yellow eyes
~~ eyes that aren't the same color as anything else on the fursona
* things i DON'T want *
~~ really big strong animals (bears, lions, Clydesdales, Saint Bernards), aquatic animals, very cute fluffy animals
~~ wings (unless it's a bird) or wing-like markings
~~ really complicated markings, really tiny/detailed markings
~~ markings that aren't symmetrical, unless they're on the legs so you can still see them from either side
~~ leopard spots
~~ rainbows or gradients
~~ red, red-orange, reddish-brownish, greenish-brownish
~~ a lot of bright colors (they're okay for eyes or other small details) (and i'm not counting white as a bright color, a lot of white is fine)
~~ human accessories (earrings, glasses, hats, sleeves/legwarmers, fishnets, ipods, etc.) (maybe a collar or necklace would be okay but that's about it)
~~ human hairstyles
~~ scars, stitches, blood, bandages, etc.
(I also said that I wanted it to represent both my dark side and light side -- though my description of my personality back then was questionable -- and I didn't want it to include my hobbies/interests)
Really the only things that have changed since then are that I've narrowed down the list of species a bit (anteaters? where did I get that from? probably no horses either), I don't think I want gray or golden-brown anymore, and I do want wngs now. And there's some other stuff I would add or be more specific about, but I'll talk about that in Attempt 6. Still hate leopard spots (I just cannot draw them!), gradients, human accessories/hair and all that other stuff. Oh how I hate them. (a lot of that stuff like the wing-like markings and fishnets and ipods were things that were really popular/overused on a lot of FP characters at the time)
Also this was before I had *any* characters on FP, so most of that stuff applies to all of them. Even with new characters I make now, even for sales, you might notice that I always make the eyes a different color from everything else, and tend to use a lot of stripes, etc.
I also remember having a vague idea around this time of a raptor (Utahraptor?) that was mostly black with blue and purple markings, but I never really made it into an actual design.
So I didn't actually design anything at this time, but when I was writing the list of things I wanted and didn't want in a fursona, it helped me get a better idea of what kind of things I.. wanted and didn't want in a fursona. That makes sense, ok. And looking at it now (I had the text file saved on a website), surprisingly a lot of it still applies, and in some ways it's closer to my newer ideas of a fursona than attempts 3-5.
Here is the list from back then (I left some things out and reworded some things 'cause they sounded dumb):
* things i like *
~~ cheetahs, hyenas, coyotes, Whippets and other sighthounds, Dobermans, skunks, opossums, rats, anteaters, Fell Ponies, Friesians, Thoroughbreds, donkeys, falcons/hawks, crows, crocodiles, velociraptors/utahraptors/etc, archaeopteryx, hybrids of different animals
~~ fangs, long tails, two tails, long ears, feathers, long thin spikes, tentacles
~~ striped tails, black and white stripes, spots, dark spots around eyes, piebald or pinto patterns, stars
~~ black, white, dark gray, brown, golden-brown, blue, purple
~~ a combo of dark and light colors
~~ gold/yellow eyes
~~ eyes that aren't the same color as anything else on the fursona
* things i DON'T want *
~~ really big strong animals (bears, lions, Clydesdales, Saint Bernards), aquatic animals, very cute fluffy animals
~~ wings (unless it's a bird) or wing-like markings
~~ really complicated markings, really tiny/detailed markings
~~ markings that aren't symmetrical, unless they're on the legs so you can still see them from either side
~~ leopard spots
~~ rainbows or gradients
~~ red, red-orange, reddish-brownish, greenish-brownish
~~ a lot of bright colors (they're okay for eyes or other small details) (and i'm not counting white as a bright color, a lot of white is fine)
~~ human accessories (earrings, glasses, hats, sleeves/legwarmers, fishnets, ipods, etc.) (maybe a collar or necklace would be okay but that's about it)
~~ human hairstyles
~~ scars, stitches, blood, bandages, etc.
(I also said that I wanted it to represent both my dark side and light side -- though my description of my personality back then was questionable -- and I didn't want it to include my hobbies/interests)
Really the only things that have changed since then are that I've narrowed down the list of species a bit (anteaters? where did I get that from? probably no horses either), I don't think I want gray or golden-brown anymore, and I do want wngs now. And there's some other stuff I would add or be more specific about, but I'll talk about that in Attempt 6. Still hate leopard spots (I just cannot draw them!), gradients, human accessories/hair and all that other stuff. Oh how I hate them. (a lot of that stuff like the wing-like markings and fishnets and ipods were things that were really popular/overused on a lot of FP characters at the time)
Also this was before I had *any* characters on FP, so most of that stuff applies to all of them. Even with new characters I make now, even for sales, you might notice that I always make the eyes a different color from everything else, and tend to use a lot of stripes, etc.
I also remember having a vague idea around this time of a raptor (Utahraptor?) that was mostly black with blue and purple markings, but I never really made it into an actual design.
Attempt(s) 3
In February 2011, I started playing around with those animal maker things (mostly the ones on Doll Divine), and trying to make the perfect animals with my favorite colors/markings (of the ones they had), and realized that might help me come up with a fursona or at least some of the colors/markings for one.
At first I was doing ones with a mostly cream/white/black color scheme, like these (resized because there's a lot of them, click them for full size):
At first I was doing ones with a mostly cream/white/black color scheme, like these (resized because there's a lot of them, click them for full size):
The dog is my favorite. Yeah I dunno, I guess I liked cream a lot at the time, maybe because that was around the time I got my character Sage and I loved her. But I realized that it didn't seem quite "me" enough for a fursona, and I would rather have less cream and more brown, thus leading to all these:
That last cat at the end was my favorite by far. There was just something about it. So I designed a fursona based on that one. Again, I don't have a pic of it (actually I do but it's on those awful old wolf lines with the messed-up face aaaargh) but it was pretty much like that cat except: the brown spots were a slightly darker brown, the eyes were light brown, the back legs had tall black stockings, the right front leg was all white and had a spiked bracelet, the left front leg was black and white striped, the muzzle was black, the ears had white tips, the inner ears were brown, there was no other brown on the head, the right ear had a notch in it, and there were thin black spikes along the back. Yes I'm having to look at that awful pic while writing this, aaaaargh. And she was supposed to wear a spiked collar I think, but I didn't add it to that pic. Her name was possibly going to be Thorn, and she was a shapeshifter, with no main form, because I still couldn't decide on a species. And she was going to possibly have some different markings/colors/accessories when she shifted to certain species, because idk.
Anyway I never really did anything with her, and she doesn't seem quite as "me" anymore.. too much brown, not enough black? But certain things like the spikes, black and white stripes, and notched ear, are still cool and I might still add them to my latest fursona attempt. (There's a reason for the notch being on the right ear, but you probably don't want to hear about it. Also reasons for the stripes on the left front leg and spiked bracelet on the right, but reasons that only make sense to me.)
Maybe I should play with those animal makers again sometime to get some new ideas...
Anyway I never really did anything with her, and she doesn't seem quite as "me" anymore.. too much brown, not enough black? But certain things like the spikes, black and white stripes, and notched ear, are still cool and I might still add them to my latest fursona attempt. (There's a reason for the notch being on the right ear, but you probably don't want to hear about it. Also reasons for the stripes on the left front leg and spiked bracelet on the right, but reasons that only make sense to me.)
Maybe I should play with those animal makers again sometime to get some new ideas...
Attempt 4
Not sure exactly when this was, but not long after attempt 3. At the time I had decided that "Thorn" had too much white and I thought it was too flashy, and wanted something more plain and boring and mostly brown, because I am plain and boring. I had been obsessed with horses and unicorns around that time, so I wrote up a description of a dark brown/bay unicorn (with a lion tail and cloven hooves, because that's how I like my unicorns). It had a My Little Pony-style mark of a white outline of a heart (this means something but again.. not telling), all legs had black stockings but the front legs also had white socks, the tail and the left front hoof were black and white striped, there were still black circles around the eyes and a spiked bracelet (which seemed to clash with its boringness), the mane was black, the horn and tail tuft were light purple, and I think the eyes were still light brown. I don't think I ever actually drew this one, it was just too boring.
Attempt 5
In about April 2011 (yeah I had a lot of fursona attempts close together here), I finally realized that my TRUE spirit animal that I truly identified most with was RAPTORS (the dinosaurs - mainly Deinonychus, the medium-sized one). So I tried to make a raptor fursona (scalesona/feathersona?) but... I have no idea where I got these colors/markings from because I hate them now, lol. I think they were inspired by some random picture of some kind of eagle that I had as my desktop background. This raptorsona was mostly a light reddish-orangish-brown with white speckles, black on its face and lower legs (which were the only parts without feathers), a dark brown stripe along the back and dark brown stripes on the wing and tail feathers (apparently.. I didn't describe it very well and I forget), long ear-like feathers on the head that were black and white striped, and yellow eyes, and it was back to having a spiked collar (seems clashy again) but no bracelets. It's mainly the reddish-orangish-brown that I hate, hey I even said up there in Attempt 2 that I didn't like red-orange or reddish-brown, so yeah, I don't even know.
And I don't even remember making this but it seems that I tried to make something close to this fursona in a dragon maker thing:
And I don't even remember making this but it seems that I tried to make something close to this fursona in a dragon maker thing:
Pretty sure the speckles were supposed to be white and the legs black, but the maker didn't have those colors, or something. Dang, I think this is hideous now.
Also there's this, I was making these horse head tags at the time so I recolored one of them as the fursona, who I was possibly going to name Speckle:
Also there's this, I was making these horse head tags at the time so I recolored one of them as the fursona, who I was possibly going to name Speckle:
Attempt 5.5
Probably like a week later, I decided that my TRUE true spirit animal was ARCHAEOPTERYX, so this was pretty much the same design as that last one only it was an archy, and its wing/tail feathers were more colorful -- the wings had brown/black/white stripes, the tail had iridescent purple/blue/green AND black/white (too many colors?). Never drew it either. I think a bit later I decided to change the red-orange-brown to a duller light brown or cream, and was going to name her "Toola" or something, but I kinda forgot about it after a while anyway. I also remember considering either a peahen (female peacock) or a Compsognathus (no feathers) for a new fursona, but meh, I just gave up again for the next year-and-a-half or so.
Attempt 6! (current ideas)
What made me want to try for a fursona again was when I randomly came up with my wolf character Dig (in October 2012), because some things about her just seemed so "me" but not enough for her to be a fursona, but it just inspired me and I started thinking of what would make a good fursona, again. I noticed that a lot of my old fursona attempts seemed to be more on the soft side, with the light colors and plain boring brown and such, but I wanted one that was more.. cool, rebellious, not-to-be-messed-with, crazy, kind of a punk/goth feel (which you could see a little bit of in things like the spikes on those old fursonas). There are reasons for this that I'm not going to go into detail about, but basically I'd rather have it represent who I wish I could be in real life but can't, or sort of my inner self that no one ever sees, rather than being boring and plain like I seem on the outside. Then again maybe I've just been watching the Mad Max movies too much and this is just a phase, but meh.
I wanted it to be a raptor again, or some kind of raptor/dragon thing, though I'm not sure if it should be based on Deinonychus or Coelophysis or something else.. need to do more research on different raptors maybe. Also it might be a semi-chimera with a few parts from other animals, for reasons that are hard to explain. I was going to give it bat/dragon wings and horns but now I'm not sure, especially about the wings, they might look dumb, especially if the arms have feathers and are also wings, though I'm not sure about that either. Maybe the wings/horns could be optional and she can make them appear or disappear. I'm pretty sure it will have tentacles coming out of its back.. not sure of the number of tentacles (two? four?). And also two long curved feathers on the back. And it might have a non-raptor-like tail of some kind, maybe a thin flexible tail with a tuft of feathers at the end. And definitely spikes along the head/neck/back but I'm not sure if they should be horn-like spikes or just spiky mohawk-like feathers. Also she doesn't entirely act like a raptor, such as sometimes panting like a dog. And she has long ears, that may be like a dog's or something else, and can stand up or droop down etc. depending on mood, and again the one on the right would probably be notched. And she can semi-shapeshift into a 4-legged form, but I'm not sure what kind of legs they'd be, or maybe she can switch between different kinds of legs, such as a dog, horse, deer/gazelle, or just a 4-legged dragon. Also, spiked collar, and maybe some silver chains somewhere.
Later I also started thinking that maybe she can totally shapeshift into a smaller, archaeopteryx-like form, and that would represent my softer side and have more plain boring colors/markings etc.
Yeah so, colors/markings. That's what I'm really stuck on. I'm pretty sure I want it to be mostly black, with some white and a little bit of brown and even littler bit of light purple and maybe light blue, but I have pretty much no idea about markings and what parts should be what colors. I think I want the tail (and maybe some other things) to be black and white striped, and the head to be white with black around the eyes like Dig, and maybe some black on the muzzle too, and the neck to probably be not black so that the black collar shows up, and that's pretty much all I've got. I might just have to figure it out as I go along if I ever actually get around to drawing this thing. Oh and the archaeopteryx form would have the black and brown reversed, and some simpler markings. I'm also not sure if the eyes should be yellow, orange, one yellow and one orange, yellow with orange in the middle, or the main form has yellow eyes and archy form has orange, or maybe archy should have brown eyes, or their eyes could change between yellow/orange/brown with certain emotions, etc.
*December Update* I had a couple of ideas for the markings. Still not totally sure if I'll use these or not, or if they would actually look good or not. First, the main part of the body could be black and white in a sort of checkerboard pattern (not a million tiny squares but like, four or six large ones) with the arms/legs mostly black (and some other markings, undecided). This is copied from, I mean inspired by, Kagamine Rin's outfit in the video for the song "Meltdown", and I know that seems like a dumb thing to base a fursona on, but it has been my favorite song for over a year and the lyrics just keep getting more meaningful, especially if you interpret it to be about leaving your old self behind and becoming a new self, which was kind of the main idea behind this fursona, plus I already wanted it to be black and white anyway. Plus I'm now torn over whether I want black or white to be the main color, or an equal amount of both somehow, and I think the checkered thing is a good compromise. And srsly, this song, you guyze. This song. (click)
Another idea from before that, was for the body to be mainly black with white stripes in some places (can't really describe), not sure if I can still fit those in there somewhere in combination with the other idea...
Also about the species, I really don't want to flip-flop again and say "but this is my TRUE true true spirit animal!" but lately I have really been feeling like it should have dragon/bat/pterosaur wings (again don't make me explain why), and even considered making the fursona a pterosaur (Rhamphorhynchus probably) or making an alternate pterosaur form (not sure what "side" of me that would represent though), but then I was leaning more toward dragon wings and even picturing it as a 4-legged dragon a lot, so, I don't know, I just think it has to have the wings after all and I'm now thinking it could be more dragon than raptor, what with having wings and spikes and possibly horns and possibly at least spending equal time in 4-legged and 2-legged forms, and I'm not crazy about the feathers anymore either, and this is a really long run-on sentence, and also dragons are just cool, and it's easier to make them more unique because they're dragons and they have so many different types and variations and you can pretty much make them look like anything and still be dragons, yeah I'm just dragging this long sentence on, oh hey, draggin' sounds like dragon, lolz, that must be some kind of sign, right, anyway I don't have as clear of a picture in my head of this more dragon-like form and what exactly it looks like, but I still want it to have the tentacles, and possibly have the spikes go along the tail too, and I'm also not entirely sure if I still want the "skull head" (white with black around eyes), also still not sure about the eye colors, but how about, the 2-legged/raptor form has yellow eyes, the 4-legged dragon has orange, and the archaeopteryx has brown, that's just another idea, that I'm throwing out there, and I'm also now using too many commas, in this really long sentence, and starting to sound like Tavros from Homestuck, and anyway I still think having one yellow and one orange eye on both the raptor and dragon forms might be best, hey the trolls in Homestuck also have yellow eyes that turn orange sometimes, such as Gamzee's when he's in murder mode, Gamzee is probably my favorite troll, wow what a long pointless rambling sentence/paragraph this is, it's a window into my madness, or something, ok this sentence is now over.
**February Update** I have a better idea of the markings now, and I really was going to try to draw this fursona as a late Christmas present to myself, but got sidetracked with my Christmas free mystery character giveaway thing which ended up taking until February to finish, plus now I have a bunch of tags to work on to do another sale because I haven't done a sale since December and need moneyz, plus I have a couple of other things to do such as updating this character site again because it also took me weeks to finish updating it this time and I got even more chars in those weeks, and I was going to do another free art/character giveaway thing for Easter and aaaaaaaahh, so yeah, this will probably end up being a ridiculously late Christmas/Easter/summer/i-don't-even-know present. :<
ANYWAY, I had gotten the idea that the fursona would now have 3 forms: a light-colored archaeopteryx that represents my soft/cowardly side, a dark-colored dragon representing my more confident/strong side, and the raptor (still with a few dragon traits) as the main form that's between the two, with black and white markings to show both sides. This seemed like the most perfect and brilliant idea ever at the time, although now I'm thinking I'll probably just draw the main raptor form and not the other two, at least for now, because I'm too lazy and busy to draw the other two and would probably rarely use them anyway, and unlike the main form, I have absolutely no idea about their designs yet, and it seems like kind of a waste of time to come up with designs for them. But they'll still be there in spirit, I guess.
At first I was thinking that (much like the Meltdown video again) the soft side was my old self, the strong side was the self I wanted to become, and the main form represents how I'm only halfway there, in the middle of evolving from one to the other. But I started to lean toward thinking that both sides have their good and bad qualities, so I don't want to fully leave behind the soft side or fully become the strong side, so the main form is just a balance between them. Especially when I was trying to figure out a name that fit this idea (or just trying to think of names that had to do with black and white) and ended up reading about yin-yang and Taoism, it fit so perfectly. Sometimes one side might dominate, but it always becomes the other side again, and they both can't exist without each other. Like day and night, life and death, etc. It's beautiful ;.; This is where I got the name "Taijitu" from, which is another word for the yin-yang symbol ☯ so I guess that will be the fursona's name too. Time will tell if this actually breaks the cycle of me changing my name on FP all the time. I'm already thinking Taijitu sounds a bit weird but I haven't thought of anything better yet. Maybe shortening it to "Tai", but that loses some of the meaning and reminds me of that kid from Digimon. :o
Anyway anyway, the main form's design is still pretty much the Meltdown-inspired thing I was talking about before, but the one thing I couldn't figure out was the face markings. Really you have no idea how much time I spent considering every possible face marking in the history of the universe. I was going to just have the face be half white and half black, split down the middle, but I kept seeing other characters like that and wanted something more original. So then after I discovered the whole yin-yang thing and how perfect it was, I wanted to throw a yin-yang reference in there somewhere, and thought maybe I could have a kind of curvy line separating the black and white to make the face look like a yin-yang symbol, which has also probably been done before but not as much as the split-down-the-middle thing. Then I was going to put dots on the cheeks or something, like the dots in the symbol, but somehow ended up deciding to make them a small star on one cheek and small spiral on the other, which makes it more unique and is a subtle reference to some of my interests without looking too lame, and also stars and spirals are just cool.
I was also trying to figure out a way to get brown in the design somewhere, I was going to have a few small brown spots on the arms and legs like my real-life birthmarks, but that didn't seem like enough, so now I'm thinking I might also put brown stripes on the lower arms/legs, kind of like Dig again. And maybe some of the spikes on the back could be brown, or something. I was also thinking of having some part of the design that changes sometimes, like a symbol somewhere that can change to different symbols or colors because I can't fit them all on the design at once, not sure about that yet. Also it has one black and one white dragon wing on the back, which are optional since they would probably kinda cover up some other stuff, and the arms can also optionally turn into bird wings, because I just cannot decide which wings are better. Also one black and one white ear, which are quite long and point backwards most of the time, kinda like rabbit ears. And the two long feathers I was talking about in the beginning, which are also optional. And I think it will be okay for it to not do the partly-shapeshifting thing with only shapeshifting the legs or whatever, that was just kind of weird and unnecessary, and it can always shapeshift entirely into different things like a canine (I will probably end up drawing a canine ref to make things easier on FP), and if I feel like drawing it as a 4-legged dragon I can just draw the dragon form, since really when I was thinking of it as a 4-legged dragon, it had mostly darker colors anyway, so yeah. Also the spikes and the tail are kind of based on an iguana now. I thiiink that's about all that I didn't already mention.
***May Update*** Yeeaah I still have no idea when I'll have time to draw this :< At least it's encouraging that so much time can pass without me starting to hate this fursona idea or getting tired of it, like all the old ideas. The design is still probably mostly the same as in the last update, but... I did get tired of the name Taijitu because it sounded weird and no one could spell it, so I shortened it to Tu, which sounds like Two, thus representing the two sides, which seemed brilliant, but it turned out to just be a really boring name. So I ended up changing my name to Spiral because I have lately fallen in love with spirals and realized that they represent a few meaningful things to me. Also I decided that the cheek markings are going to be the ones that can change to different shapes or colors, but always opposite colors, and by default they'll both be spirals, one black and one white. I thought of putting a bunch of other spirals on the fursona somewhere, but it seemed just.. too spiraly, and unnecessary, and too much like other spiraly characters, and it would replace the other markings like the Meltdown checkers and yin-yang face markings, which I decided to keep. So I'm not sure if the character's name should actually be Spiral if it only has cheek spirals, but I can't think of another name, it might be technically nameless but can be called Spiral if you have to call it something, or, something. Cheek spirals in particular are a reference to the Saw movies, which my dark side is quite a fan of (you know, I'm really going to try to draw this fursona by Halloween at least, so when I do my Halloween free art topic [which will have a special twist and be awesome] I can post a pic of my fursona with red cheek spirals saying "Hello FP, I want to play a game") and more importantly the cherubs from Homestuck (which are themselves a reference to Saw) which also have the whole personality-duality thing going on, so it's quite fitting. Also Trickster mode, which is awesome and helps represent the usual happy crazy personality of this main form. Spirals do mean other things too but I don't feel like explaining them all right now. If I do make this fursona and make a page about it, I'll explain all these meanings of things, because people will probably think that this whole fursona was just made to look cool, but almost all the colors/markings/species/features/etc do mean something, I just figured out cool-looking ways to represent things and put them all together. :I
So yeah, that's all I've got for now. Stay tuned to find out if I ever draw this one, or if I totally ditch it and move on to Attempt 7, in the continuing adventures of me and my legendary quest for a fursona. *dramatic music plays*
I wanted it to be a raptor again, or some kind of raptor/dragon thing, though I'm not sure if it should be based on Deinonychus or Coelophysis or something else.. need to do more research on different raptors maybe. Also it might be a semi-chimera with a few parts from other animals, for reasons that are hard to explain. I was going to give it bat/dragon wings and horns but now I'm not sure, especially about the wings, they might look dumb, especially if the arms have feathers and are also wings, though I'm not sure about that either. Maybe the wings/horns could be optional and she can make them appear or disappear. I'm pretty sure it will have tentacles coming out of its back.. not sure of the number of tentacles (two? four?). And also two long curved feathers on the back. And it might have a non-raptor-like tail of some kind, maybe a thin flexible tail with a tuft of feathers at the end. And definitely spikes along the head/neck/back but I'm not sure if they should be horn-like spikes or just spiky mohawk-like feathers. Also she doesn't entirely act like a raptor, such as sometimes panting like a dog. And she has long ears, that may be like a dog's or something else, and can stand up or droop down etc. depending on mood, and again the one on the right would probably be notched. And she can semi-shapeshift into a 4-legged form, but I'm not sure what kind of legs they'd be, or maybe she can switch between different kinds of legs, such as a dog, horse, deer/gazelle, or just a 4-legged dragon. Also, spiked collar, and maybe some silver chains somewhere.
Later I also started thinking that maybe she can totally shapeshift into a smaller, archaeopteryx-like form, and that would represent my softer side and have more plain boring colors/markings etc.
Yeah so, colors/markings. That's what I'm really stuck on. I'm pretty sure I want it to be mostly black, with some white and a little bit of brown and even littler bit of light purple and maybe light blue, but I have pretty much no idea about markings and what parts should be what colors. I think I want the tail (and maybe some other things) to be black and white striped, and the head to be white with black around the eyes like Dig, and maybe some black on the muzzle too, and the neck to probably be not black so that the black collar shows up, and that's pretty much all I've got. I might just have to figure it out as I go along if I ever actually get around to drawing this thing. Oh and the archaeopteryx form would have the black and brown reversed, and some simpler markings. I'm also not sure if the eyes should be yellow, orange, one yellow and one orange, yellow with orange in the middle, or the main form has yellow eyes and archy form has orange, or maybe archy should have brown eyes, or their eyes could change between yellow/orange/brown with certain emotions, etc.
*December Update* I had a couple of ideas for the markings. Still not totally sure if I'll use these or not, or if they would actually look good or not. First, the main part of the body could be black and white in a sort of checkerboard pattern (not a million tiny squares but like, four or six large ones) with the arms/legs mostly black (and some other markings, undecided). This is copied from, I mean inspired by, Kagamine Rin's outfit in the video for the song "Meltdown", and I know that seems like a dumb thing to base a fursona on, but it has been my favorite song for over a year and the lyrics just keep getting more meaningful, especially if you interpret it to be about leaving your old self behind and becoming a new self, which was kind of the main idea behind this fursona, plus I already wanted it to be black and white anyway. Plus I'm now torn over whether I want black or white to be the main color, or an equal amount of both somehow, and I think the checkered thing is a good compromise. And srsly, this song, you guyze. This song. (click)
Another idea from before that, was for the body to be mainly black with white stripes in some places (can't really describe), not sure if I can still fit those in there somewhere in combination with the other idea...
Also about the species, I really don't want to flip-flop again and say "but this is my TRUE true true spirit animal!" but lately I have really been feeling like it should have dragon/bat/pterosaur wings (again don't make me explain why), and even considered making the fursona a pterosaur (Rhamphorhynchus probably) or making an alternate pterosaur form (not sure what "side" of me that would represent though), but then I was leaning more toward dragon wings and even picturing it as a 4-legged dragon a lot, so, I don't know, I just think it has to have the wings after all and I'm now thinking it could be more dragon than raptor, what with having wings and spikes and possibly horns and possibly at least spending equal time in 4-legged and 2-legged forms, and I'm not crazy about the feathers anymore either, and this is a really long run-on sentence, and also dragons are just cool, and it's easier to make them more unique because they're dragons and they have so many different types and variations and you can pretty much make them look like anything and still be dragons, yeah I'm just dragging this long sentence on, oh hey, draggin' sounds like dragon, lolz, that must be some kind of sign, right, anyway I don't have as clear of a picture in my head of this more dragon-like form and what exactly it looks like, but I still want it to have the tentacles, and possibly have the spikes go along the tail too, and I'm also not entirely sure if I still want the "skull head" (white with black around eyes), also still not sure about the eye colors, but how about, the 2-legged/raptor form has yellow eyes, the 4-legged dragon has orange, and the archaeopteryx has brown, that's just another idea, that I'm throwing out there, and I'm also now using too many commas, in this really long sentence, and starting to sound like Tavros from Homestuck, and anyway I still think having one yellow and one orange eye on both the raptor and dragon forms might be best, hey the trolls in Homestuck also have yellow eyes that turn orange sometimes, such as Gamzee's when he's in murder mode, Gamzee is probably my favorite troll, wow what a long pointless rambling sentence/paragraph this is, it's a window into my madness, or something, ok this sentence is now over.
**February Update** I have a better idea of the markings now, and I really was going to try to draw this fursona as a late Christmas present to myself, but got sidetracked with my Christmas free mystery character giveaway thing which ended up taking until February to finish, plus now I have a bunch of tags to work on to do another sale because I haven't done a sale since December and need moneyz, plus I have a couple of other things to do such as updating this character site again because it also took me weeks to finish updating it this time and I got even more chars in those weeks, and I was going to do another free art/character giveaway thing for Easter and aaaaaaaahh, so yeah, this will probably end up being a ridiculously late Christmas/Easter/summer/i-don't-even-know present. :<
ANYWAY, I had gotten the idea that the fursona would now have 3 forms: a light-colored archaeopteryx that represents my soft/cowardly side, a dark-colored dragon representing my more confident/strong side, and the raptor (still with a few dragon traits) as the main form that's between the two, with black and white markings to show both sides. This seemed like the most perfect and brilliant idea ever at the time, although now I'm thinking I'll probably just draw the main raptor form and not the other two, at least for now, because I'm too lazy and busy to draw the other two and would probably rarely use them anyway, and unlike the main form, I have absolutely no idea about their designs yet, and it seems like kind of a waste of time to come up with designs for them. But they'll still be there in spirit, I guess.
At first I was thinking that (much like the Meltdown video again) the soft side was my old self, the strong side was the self I wanted to become, and the main form represents how I'm only halfway there, in the middle of evolving from one to the other. But I started to lean toward thinking that both sides have their good and bad qualities, so I don't want to fully leave behind the soft side or fully become the strong side, so the main form is just a balance between them. Especially when I was trying to figure out a name that fit this idea (or just trying to think of names that had to do with black and white) and ended up reading about yin-yang and Taoism, it fit so perfectly. Sometimes one side might dominate, but it always becomes the other side again, and they both can't exist without each other. Like day and night, life and death, etc. It's beautiful ;.; This is where I got the name "Taijitu" from, which is another word for the yin-yang symbol ☯ so I guess that will be the fursona's name too. Time will tell if this actually breaks the cycle of me changing my name on FP all the time. I'm already thinking Taijitu sounds a bit weird but I haven't thought of anything better yet. Maybe shortening it to "Tai", but that loses some of the meaning and reminds me of that kid from Digimon. :o
Anyway anyway, the main form's design is still pretty much the Meltdown-inspired thing I was talking about before, but the one thing I couldn't figure out was the face markings. Really you have no idea how much time I spent considering every possible face marking in the history of the universe. I was going to just have the face be half white and half black, split down the middle, but I kept seeing other characters like that and wanted something more original. So then after I discovered the whole yin-yang thing and how perfect it was, I wanted to throw a yin-yang reference in there somewhere, and thought maybe I could have a kind of curvy line separating the black and white to make the face look like a yin-yang symbol, which has also probably been done before but not as much as the split-down-the-middle thing. Then I was going to put dots on the cheeks or something, like the dots in the symbol, but somehow ended up deciding to make them a small star on one cheek and small spiral on the other, which makes it more unique and is a subtle reference to some of my interests without looking too lame, and also stars and spirals are just cool.
I was also trying to figure out a way to get brown in the design somewhere, I was going to have a few small brown spots on the arms and legs like my real-life birthmarks, but that didn't seem like enough, so now I'm thinking I might also put brown stripes on the lower arms/legs, kind of like Dig again. And maybe some of the spikes on the back could be brown, or something. I was also thinking of having some part of the design that changes sometimes, like a symbol somewhere that can change to different symbols or colors because I can't fit them all on the design at once, not sure about that yet. Also it has one black and one white dragon wing on the back, which are optional since they would probably kinda cover up some other stuff, and the arms can also optionally turn into bird wings, because I just cannot decide which wings are better. Also one black and one white ear, which are quite long and point backwards most of the time, kinda like rabbit ears. And the two long feathers I was talking about in the beginning, which are also optional. And I think it will be okay for it to not do the partly-shapeshifting thing with only shapeshifting the legs or whatever, that was just kind of weird and unnecessary, and it can always shapeshift entirely into different things like a canine (I will probably end up drawing a canine ref to make things easier on FP), and if I feel like drawing it as a 4-legged dragon I can just draw the dragon form, since really when I was thinking of it as a 4-legged dragon, it had mostly darker colors anyway, so yeah. Also the spikes and the tail are kind of based on an iguana now. I thiiink that's about all that I didn't already mention.
***May Update*** Yeeaah I still have no idea when I'll have time to draw this :< At least it's encouraging that so much time can pass without me starting to hate this fursona idea or getting tired of it, like all the old ideas. The design is still probably mostly the same as in the last update, but... I did get tired of the name Taijitu because it sounded weird and no one could spell it, so I shortened it to Tu, which sounds like Two, thus representing the two sides, which seemed brilliant, but it turned out to just be a really boring name. So I ended up changing my name to Spiral because I have lately fallen in love with spirals and realized that they represent a few meaningful things to me. Also I decided that the cheek markings are going to be the ones that can change to different shapes or colors, but always opposite colors, and by default they'll both be spirals, one black and one white. I thought of putting a bunch of other spirals on the fursona somewhere, but it seemed just.. too spiraly, and unnecessary, and too much like other spiraly characters, and it would replace the other markings like the Meltdown checkers and yin-yang face markings, which I decided to keep. So I'm not sure if the character's name should actually be Spiral if it only has cheek spirals, but I can't think of another name, it might be technically nameless but can be called Spiral if you have to call it something, or, something. Cheek spirals in particular are a reference to the Saw movies, which my dark side is quite a fan of (you know, I'm really going to try to draw this fursona by Halloween at least, so when I do my Halloween free art topic [which will have a special twist and be awesome] I can post a pic of my fursona with red cheek spirals saying "Hello FP, I want to play a game") and more importantly the cherubs from Homestuck (which are themselves a reference to Saw) which also have the whole personality-duality thing going on, so it's quite fitting. Also Trickster mode, which is awesome and helps represent the usual happy crazy personality of this main form. Spirals do mean other things too but I don't feel like explaining them all right now. If I do make this fursona and make a page about it, I'll explain all these meanings of things, because people will probably think that this whole fursona was just made to look cool, but almost all the colors/markings/species/features/etc do mean something, I just figured out cool-looking ways to represent things and put them all together. :I
So yeah, that's all I've got for now. Stay tuned to find out if I ever draw this one, or if I totally ditch it and move on to Attempt 7, in the continuing adventures of me and my legendary quest for a fursona. *dramatic music plays*