Digging up Positivity - Furry charity and good news - October 2020

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Hello there and welcome to October's episode of Digging Up Positivity. This month we have a whole bunch of animation news, lovely charity items, and a passionate animated weasel from Estonia. Plus more news from the fandom and beyond!

WPAFW raises $2471.94 for TASOW

Western Pennsylvania Furry Weekend celebrated their convention online and managed to raise $2,471.94 for TASOW, an animal rescue facility in the same US state.

Wild North raises $543 for the Newcastle Dog & Cat Shelter.

A small and relaxed convention called the the Wild North, normally taking place in the United Kingdom, had an online weekend called Virtual Tails. Filled with games, stories, art, and even sword fight demonstrations. And during this weekend they managed to raise $543 for the Newcastle Dog & Cat Shelter.

Confuror raises $3175 for Silva Teenek

In Mexico, the lovely convention Confuror went online too, and raised $3,175 for Silva Teenek, a WildLife refuge that devotes itself to the protection of wildlife, and providing education on the matter to their visitors.

In the spirit of online conventions, they did rebuild their hotel in VRchat, just like Eurofurence, and in Minecraft. Brainfreeze pup made a video comparing the real and virtual Confuror.

And of course, they had a fursuit parade! But this time, it featured fursuiters from all over the world! I just got all warm and fuzzy seeing all of them passing by.

Fursuit Giveaway

Seeing all those fursuits certainly makes me want to fursuit myself, from dancing around, to doing charity events. Do you know someone who really deserves one? Maybe that person has done something special for you or the community?
Ash Coyote, our last months’ guest, is doing a giveaway for 2 fursuits from Kloofsuits.

The submission form is linked in the description, but be quick! The deadline is October 31st. [For those reading the transcript on November 1st, sorry about that, be sure to subscribe to Thabo's YouTube channel for more timely info]

Doggo Selfies

Simone Giertz, known for really weird but awesome robot contraptions, and at one point converting her Tesla Model 3 into a pickup trick, one day was trying to teach her adorable doggo to scroll through pictures with treats. But nothing ever stays small with her. So she got the idea to make a doggy picture booth from Lego!

With a Mindstorm kit (basically programmable Lego’s), a GoPro and a food dispenser, which she later broke apart to replace the mechanical parts with the Mindstorm kit). It took a bit of tinkering, and learning her furry friend how to operate it, but the results were amazing.

Xbox Series X Fridge

For gamers, we live in exciting months. Both the Playstation 5 and the X Box Series X are going to be released. And of course, both have had their fair share of memes. One of the biggest memes was the X Box Series X Fridge. Microsoft went along with it. They actually made a very limited edition fridge sized X Box Series X Fridge! The YouTube i.Justine had an unboxing video of one in her garage, and it really makes me feel small if I see that thing! And they went with all sorts of fun details, like the logo lighting up when its plugged in, and you hear the startup sound when you open it! Now, maybe they still have some of the original Xbox controllers laying around, in terms of size, it should be a match!

Live action Rescue Rangers

One of the series I have grown up with is Chip and Dale, Rescue Rangers. I always held a little fondness of them, especially Gadget. So of course my interest was peeked when thedisnisder.com broke the news they are going to make a live action version!
Now, Disney live action always has been a bit of hit and miss, but I remain hopeful. The director will be Akiva Schaffer together with people like Todd Lieberman, known for producing the Muppets and the Live Action version of Beauty and the Beast. Not much of the script is known other that it won’t be an origin story or a Detective Agency story but rather something meta, self referential, meta, and “cool”.

Soooo, when hearing this description, I will remain on the fence and hope for the best.

Animaniacs trailer

Last month we covered a released clip from the much anticipated Animaniacs. And later the, very, very self aware, official trailer got released, showcasing more of this much anticipated show. The first of the 13 episodes will be airing on Hulu on November 20th.

Cold Storage

When you start a YouTube channel, or anything online really, how to make new and fresh content everytime. How to get to it? How can you do to inspire yourself? Kabba, had the same problem, and he decided to start working on an animation with this very concept!

Part two will be released this month and I am looking forward to the conclusion.

Bad Luck Jack

Viziepop, of Hazbin Hotel fame, released a new animated short named ZooPhobia: Bad Luck Jack. A very nice and fluent animation filled with original characters and song, on how they deal with Jacks’ curse of supernatural bad luck. Will it work out? Do check it out!

And speaking of amazing animation, a big fan, and creator herself, this months featurette is Flacko Weasel!

And now, I will narrate her story:

Featurette: Flacko Weasel

My name is FlackoWeasel, a nutty weasel from a small country in Europe called Estonia! I love love love blue cheese and all other kind of cheeses too! My character Flacko is inspired by Scrat from ice age. When I was 14, I loved Ice age so much, I knew I wanted to have a cartoony character too, who was nutty and crazy and stupid. As Ice Age had a character Scrat in it, I knew this is something made for me.

I am aware my weasel isn't like real weasel looks like, mostly because of nose. I think that part was inspired by Rex from We're Back a Dinosaur Story. I still had the love for dinosaurs in me and it somehow slipped into the designed. At first he had tiny nostrils, like super tiny, together on the tip of the nose. But when years went on, it went bigger and bigger, until today! Flacko's species idea is also inspired by Sonic a bit, like certain Sonic characters doesn't look like real characters or resemble some of these, I had a fun designing this weirdo!

My inspiration has always been wacky cartoons liked Cow and Chicken, Ren and Stimpy. Dexter, Garfield, Sonic, Digimon, Tom and Jerry, Disney animations, and so on. These all influenced me. I could go from super gross style to other style and so on. In furry fandom, one of my fav artists have been Henrieke, Titash, Eligecos, Themrock, Keke, all kind of fursuit makers, Mugiwara Cosplay, plush maker NazFX, whose tutorials are so big help getting better at plushies.

I have heard about Dein Townsend in 2014 when a friend posted his songs on Facebook. I listened to a few songs: Universal Flame and Bend it Like Bender, and something just clicked. It sounded so epic and awesome, like a current year Freddy Mercury. And since I am a big van of Queen, this really hit home.

My friend and I ended up listening to his albums like Epicloud and Sky Blue and soon I started to imagine videoclips of his music featuring Flacko. I can still remember the way he mimicked raindrops with his instruments in his music with Rain City, or a dragon escaping from bees in the song ‘Silent Militia’. Inspired by all of this, I started to draw fan art!

The more I listened to his music, the more I started to appreciate Devin. Just like Freddy Mercury, he has such a wide voice range. To me it was all new, so I went like ‘Whaaat?’. Maybe this is because I never listened to this kind of Metal before, but it really opened a new world for me!

One day on twitter Devin tweeted he needed help with some animation. I was not sure what exactly he meant by that, but I went and showed my work and this is how I got to animate for the song Borderlands from his new Album ‘Empath’. I really poured my heart and soul into it.

It had to be finished in 1 month, and my old PC really hated me for adding so many layers and complicated backgrounds with each object separately digitally painted, to my animation. I was in constant fear of my PC dying completely on me, or me screwing things up, but I kept on pushing! I wanted it to be as epic and beautiful as possible.

I still draw fan art for him and enjoy his music, it really inspires me to go on and try out new stuff, like animating like they did in the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit, where the animated birds come to life!

I was born a bit disabled, so I don’t understand the real world as well as others. I always liked to stare out of the window of the bus, and watch Sonic the Hedgehog interact with the cars, buildings, and trees. While I am horrible at math, I am really good with visuals and that helped me to avoid math. Numbers really give me anxiety.

The best moment in the fandom is all this stuff I have: Great friends, Devin, art, fursuit skills. If I had not found the fandom in 2009, I would not have had any of this, I would not even have moved out from my town of birth: Tallinn. And I would still be stuck in my old moldy apartment or have gotten the help and support for my mental
disability.

I can’t imagine my life without any of this, I am honestly scared to even think of that. Honestly, I think the fandom saved my life, to be damn honest! My art evolved, I took on new hobbies like making fursuits, plushies and toys, sculpting and making art-dolls. Before 2009 I never visited cons. And when I did, it was amazing, it was magical, I have never felt so much love before. People accepted me for what I am. It was live changing. I love it.

Outtro

Thank you so much for sticking with us til the very end. Which brings me to these special people, supporters of this channel:

• Cosmik with a K
• Els Deckers
• Falconeo
• Hanzana
• Ishnula
• Kitako
• Tantroo McNally
• Taross
• Score Chaser

We will return on November 28th. And until then: Stay awesome and all the hugs!