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Dated March 24, here is an article in the Star Observer, a free tabloid and online newspaper that caters to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender and intersex communities in the eastern States of Australia:

http://www.starobserver.com.au/features/community/freedom-in-fur/134400

The article presents an interview with Melbourne fursuiter Matt "Makoh" Sim.


If you ask someone what they know about furries, a very specific but probably inaccurate image usually comes to mind. Benjamin Riley spoke to one member of Australia's fast-growing furry fandom about misconceptions, community, and how dressing up as an anthropomorphic cartoon animal can be the most liberating thing in the world.

OVER a couple of drinks after work in a beer garden in Melbourne’s Collingwood neighbourhood, Matt Sim explained the origins of his character, Makoh.

“I sometimes find myself being awkward or shy — this character would be outgoing and very social,” he said.

“He has a lithe build — I’m not fat, but I’m bigger than the character would be. He’s very friendly, where I can be a bit dickish at times.

“It’s how I would envisage myself as the perfect me. Even if I think of the perfect me as a human, it’s how I would transfer that over to a character. That’s what a lot of people think — it’s what they would be if they could be anything. That’s what I would be if I could be anything.”

Makoh is an African wild dog. He is both a character, and Sim himself. Makoh is Sim’s “fursona” — who Sim becomes when he puts on the $4000, custom-made suit that allows him to act out this idealised version of himself.

Sim belongs to Australia’s burgeoning furry community. It’s difficult to pin down exactly what it means to be a part of that community, but for the most part it revolves around dressing up as and having appreciation for anthropomorphic cartoon animals. Far from the image of middle-aged men dressing up like mascots to have sex, it seems that within some loose thematic boundaries, furry fandom can look like almost anything.

“To me, furry is a very broad topic,” Sim said.

“There’s the people who dress up, there’s the artists who draw artwork, which often the characters are designed off of to make the fur suits, and then there’s writers who write fan fiction, and people like myself who appreciate all of this.”

For Sim, furry is a hobby, and a community based around that hobby.

He’s 23 now, and he’s been living in Melbourne since moving here from Dunedin in New Zealand a few years back. Sim first got into furry when he was 16, through online chat rooms. He bought his Makoh fursuit less than a year ago, so most of his involvement in the community has been as an admirer. He explained that, largely due to the costs of a good quality fursuit, only a minority of people in the community are what’s called “fursuiters”.

As a concept, Sim’s fursona Makoh is only a couple of years old.

“I talked with my friend who’s an artist, and we sat down and formed this design of my character,” he said.

“I tried to encompass features of myself, but it’s also an ideal I have, this ideal character that I would like to be if I was in that position… both personality and physically.”

Once Sim was happy with the design, he got in touch with a well-known American fursuit maker who goes by ByCats4Cats (he’s since branched out into other animals) to have Makoh created. Between manufacturing and shipping the suit from the US to Melbourne, it cost Sim around $4000 AUD. He could have paid a lot less (though even a cheap fursuit will set you back around $1000), but Sim explained the best quality fursuits are highly prized in the community.

“There’s definitely people out there who do them cheaper, but those are often the people that aren’t as well-known,” he said.

“There’s the renown factor, the quality and the look of it… It costs so much because there’s so much patchwork in it.”

There aren’t a lot of people wearing suits at most “furmeets”, though there are usually specific events organised for fursuiters.

The furry community is now a huge part of Sim’s life, and knowing people online meant furries were the only people he knew when he moved to Australia. He said the majority of his friends are furries, including his boyfriend.

That’s another thing: the community is really gay. Sim estimates that in Melbourne, the community is around 70 per cent male, and most of those men (as well as most of the women in the community) aren’t straight. Sim said it goes hand-in-hand with the shy, awkward archetype of the furry fan. Furry fandom is both a haven for outcasts and a space to try being something different.

“It definitely helped me when I was younger to come into my own as a gay male,” Sim argued.

“It’s a very open community. There’s no ‘off-limits’ to just chat about, I find. Furries tend to be happy to talk about sexuality like it’s not a big deal.”

Sim was happy to discuss the subject of sexuality and furry fandom. He wants people to understand the community better, especially given the many misconceptions about furries. He said most wouldn’t even talk to a journalist about it, after a wave of mainstream media coverage a while back painted the community as completely sex-obsessed. Some media coverage of furry fandom has even drawn a connection between furry fandom and bestiality, which Sim vehemently rejected as both offensive and untrue.

Sim said most fursuiters would never have sex in the suit (known as “yiffing”) — their exorbitant cost is a good incentive to keep them clean.

“I won’t deny that there are some people that do that — denying that’s just stupid because it happens,” he said.

“It can be a very sexual thing for some people. It can be a completely non-sexual thing for others.”

Although only a small minority of furries have sex in the suits, furry fandom can be sexual in other ways. Sim said it’s common for people in the community to commission sexualised “pin-ups” of their characters, or just straight-up illustrations of their fursona having sex with another fursona.

“An artist generally won’t draw something without both parties saying, ‘hey, I want this drawn’,” Sim explained.

“It’s reasonably common, surprisingly, for people to have artwork drawn of say, them fucking each other. But that doesn’t mean that anything would actually happen between those two people, it’s just the characters.”

After years spent admiring fursuits, Sim remembers what it was like the first time he went to a furry event as Makoh.

“I didn’t really know how to act. I felt slightly awkward at first, before I started to come into my own in it, because it’s a very interesting feeling being inside that fursuit… you overheat very quickly, and your vision is limited. But once that went away, it felt really liberating,” he said.

“It’s an interesting feeling when everyone finds you cute. Suddenly everyone wants your attention, everyone wants to be around you, everyone wants pictures with you, everyone compliments you. It feels good. I won’t lie, the attention is a good feeling. I have always lacked that in myself — I have never felt overly attractive.

“In some ways it feels fake, or that they just like what’s on the outside of you, but at the same time, it still feels nice.”

Sim believes being Makoh has changed how he feels in his everyday life, outside the suit.

“I feel like a normal, confident person since I got Makoh,” he said.

“It’s made me feel more confident in myself, more confident in my own appearance, my own personality. I think I act a bit more outgoing. It’s in some ways changed me into that more ideal self that I thought of when I created Makoh. It’s liberating.”

Part of the interview series:  artists, animators, and more. When he was younger, Adam Conover went to anime conventions dressed like a bad guy from Sailor Moon. Adam writes jokes about internet culture for CollegeHumor.  The comedy website earned high praise this week with 9 Webby award nominations.  He told me that winning those would be way less cool than getting […]

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I've narrowed it down to 2 reasons

1. Exponential growth of people joining the fandom at a young age

2. People growing out of the fandom

There's also factors to consider like the fandom isn't that old and etc

There's probably many more reasons than and I would like to hear your ideas on why the average age of the fandom is young.

Edit: I shouldn't of use " so young" that sounds a bit harsh I will just use "young"

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Seeing the Road Ahead

by Kyell Gold

 

“Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius.”

—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

 

If you’re only a short way into your writing career and you’re discouraged by how far you have to go, there’s a silver lining: you’re on the right path. Being a writer, or indeed any creative professional, takes people through many stages. Ira Glass has talked about “the gap” that happens when you’ve progressed a little way into your field, far enough to recognize the work of the really good people but not there yourself yet. He talks about the importance of pushing through that gap, and I think anyone starting out in a creative field should watch that video.
 
The above Conan Doyle quotation is one I ran across recently and it struck me as not only another way to look at Ira Glass’s “gap,” but also a way to encourage people who feel stuck there. I think a lot of people starting out in art don’t realize that it takes a certain amount of skill just to be able to evaluate the work of others in your field. When you get to this stage where you’re thinking, “my work will never be as good as these works I admire,” what you may not realize is that you’re already on the way there.

Critiquing is one of the most important skills in writing (and, I think, any art). You have to be able to critique your own work, and the easiest way to develop that skill is to critique the work of others. If you can’t look at a piece and judge its quality, even in a very rough sense, you’re not going to be able to refine your work and make it better; you’re not going to learn from your mistakes and make your next effort even better.

This is hard to do. When you haven’t tried to look at any work objectively, to see what the artist was trying to do and where the flaws are, you see in your own work only the beautiful story that was in your head. When other people look at your work and tell you that your characters are flat or that your dialogue is stiff and unrealistic (or any other critiques), it’s discouraging not (only) because they don’t like it, but because you can’t see those flaws to correct them. It’s like being in that dream where you’re being given a test in a class you can’t remember having taken. In a way, it doesn’t feel fair.

When I read slushpiles for magazines, one of the things that consistently amazed me was how people would send in these terrible submissions, poorly punctuated with grammar and spelling that even most Internet forum posters would cringe at, and they would claim to have read our magazine. I would think, “Seriously? You read our stories and you think this belongs alongside it?” But those people just hadn’t developed the critical faculty yet.

How do you go about this? Discuss writing with other people or read reviews of books from many different sources—friends, professional reviewers, anywhere you can find them. Listen to other people explain critically what’s good and bad about many different pieces of writing and try to understand their views. This is something I still do, because like most things, learning to critique is not something you’re ever done with. Eventually you will develop your own thoughts about what works and doesn’t work, and you will have other beginning writers listening to you.

So if you’re discouraged about the state of your writing (or other art) compared to the people you admire, take heart and keep going. Because you’re on the right path. It’s a long one, but you’re a step closer than you were when you started.

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More news from Cartoon Brew: The first major-studio release of a faith-based animated feature film. “Academy Award-nominated director Tim Reckart (Head Over Heels) will make his feature directorial debut with faith-based feature The Lamb, Sony Pictures Animation revealed today in a late-Easter Weekend announcement. First announced in September 2014, The Lamb will be a fully CG-animated pic based on the Christian nativity story, telling the ‘inspirational story of a young lamb who will change the world’ with an all-animal cast.” Lest you forget, the last time there was a faith-based anthropomorphic animated film (independently released) it was Jonah: A Veggie Tales Movie. Stay tuned for more information on a release date for The Lamb.

image c. 2015 Morethings.com

Pretty much the title. I feel like this could be a great, no stress way to help improve my art, and expand my small gallery, if you're interested, please respond either below or in a pm with characteristics, pose, or anything you want me to keep in mind. SFW only please

I'll try to update everybody who asks, but don't expect it to be done this week if you're number 57.

I'll be working with pen or any other media I feel motivated to try.

I'm really looking forward to this!

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Savrin is back from San Fran, Shiva is going on a cruise, and Fuzz is off to FWA. So it’s a duo show this week, with tales of California, emails about puppy love, and a con report.. with a couple heavy emails in there too. Use our coupon code ‘knot’ at AdamEve.com for a good deal~ Music this week is a Gravity Falls theme remix by Radix https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxQ8TGr04JI Episode 277 - Pinball Wizards

Let's be honest, everyone thinks their species is the best. Why should I believe that your species is superior?

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