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Roo and Tugs discuss the ins and outs of pet ownership - what it takes to own a pet, some of the hidden surprises, things not to do with pets, and more! We also read your emails and discuss your advice and stories. We also have the first anniversary of Space News, and a visit from Sonya, chair of BABSCon.



NOW LISTEN!

Show Notes

Special Thanks

Velox
Leo the Artist
Degen
Leon
Smokescale Aquatos - happy first anniversary, Space News!

Music

Opening theme: Fredrik Miller– Cloud Fields (Radio Mix). USA: Bandcamp, 2011. ©2011 Fur What It’s Worth. (Buy a copy here – support your fellow furs!)
Space News Music: Fredrik Miller – Orbit. USA: Bandcamp, 2013. Used with permission. (Buy a copy here – support your fellow furs)
Mailbag: Eskadet – Back To Kyoto ;  from the album “Solitudes” (Lemongrassmusic, 2010) – www.lemongrassmusic.de – Used under license.
Closing: Fredrik Miller – Cloud Fields (Chill Out Mix). USA: Bandcamp, 2011. ©2011 Fur What It’s Worth. (Buy a copy here – support your fellow furs!) S4 Episode 11 – Caring for the not Pretend Animals - Roo and Tugs discuss the ins and outs of pet ownership - what it takes to own a pet, some of the hidden surprises, things not to do with pets, and more! We also read your emails and discuss your advice

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Part 2 of my "Helpful tips for people looking to make something more than a cookie cutter character". Again, there is no definitive way to making a character, this stuff is just meant to help you think of ideas.

In this part, we'll discuss the murky waters of hybrids. Notorious for being "special snowflakes", "attention grabbers", and just in general being very slapped together, it's a real treat when you find those hybrids that have actually been blended together.

You don't make brownies leaving the batter like this. You mix it up well, and it looks delicious. Making a hybrid character is somewhat the same way. Yeah, you /could/ put demon wings on your werewolf, but what if you made those wings look a bit more fitting? Like they're supposed to be there?

The second person who I chose from my older post a couple days ago is /u/pretzelbagel (which may not be a surprise, I was very fond of the suggestion right away).

How about a hyena/oriental dragon hybrid? I bet he'd be a hit at parties! :3

Part 1: Referencing the First Species

Oh goodie, that "R" word is back. Yep. So Hyenas are pretty similar to wolves, huskies, and foxes right? I mean, yeah, sure, they're quadrupeds, with carnivorous diets, they look a little like dogs? They must be canines!

WRONG.

Hyenas are actually far more distant from canines than foxes are, and foxes aren't quite similar to our pet Fido either. Hyenas, surprise, are actually branched from Feliformia....otherwise, cats. Now, they're still quite a bit different, but Hyenas are classified much further from dogs than cats.

Why am I explaining this? Becuase that's what you're looking for when you reference species. What makes a species look like that species. You don't want to accidentally make your hyena look like a husky...

I wasn't as familiar with hyenas as I'd like, so I'm showing you one of I think four pages of reference, and what I learned about their defining characteristics are:

*They have very heavy heads, rounded muzzle, and a very flat face. Fun fact, their muzzle is a little shorter than I thought it was.

*Their zygomatic arch is rather emphasized, almost giving their faces a skull-like appearance at times.

*Big ears. Ears that reminded me more of a big cat like a lion.

*Their necks. They have a very interesting shape, having tall shoulders, and then lowering their heads giving their neck a triangular shape. Spikey mane is obvious.

*Their shoulders are tall, their haunches (read: butt) is short. Huehuehue.

*Round bellies, it's really fun to draw.

*HUGE PAWS. THEY'RE GREAT.

And if you think I'm being really picky, you may notice some very familiar cartoon hyenas who have the same characteristics emphasized.

Now, in the image I linked, the bottom right image has a couple question marks. I noticed something when I drew from an image with a wide open mouth. Hyenas have these strange little gum protrusions on their lower jaws. More on this later, it was useful.

Keeping all of this in mind, I move on to species 2...

Part 2: Referencing the Second Species

So, in the case of having one real species and one fantasy species, I usually draw the fantasy one second. With the practice and warming up of the first species, I'm ready to draw something that /doesn't exist/. And of course, because it doesn't exist, there's usually some wild interpretations of this.

Oriental dragons is an umbrella term for several types of eastern dragons: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc. So I looked up each one specifically, looked at ancient art, and gathered what I could.

The typical stuff, of course. They have long bodies, with fish-like scales. They usually have manes, and four limbs. Each paw has either 3+1 or 4+1 claws, depending on what region the dragon is in. There's usually a pearl involved, whiskers, big fluffy eyebrows....you get the idea. I wont go into this like the hyena thing.

I wasn't really looking to be super fancy with these ones. They don't exist, so no real need for me to direct reference anything as long as I find those features I want.

Part 3: Doing the Ugly

This is THE WORST STEP. Seriously. This is the step that I sometimes draw on separate sheets of paper that aren't in my sketchbook because stuff from this step looks so bad.

This is where you get your first ideas on paper. They will be awful. Because you don't know what you're drawing yet, just know it's okay for this to look bad, but you need to get those ideas to paper.

This one I linked is my first and only page from this step...normally I go into two or more pages but the second page actually got the idea I went with. This being the first...the two on the left were the first things I drew. They are awful, hideous, and boring craps.

Like, I'm trying to shit a lump of gold here but this is just normal brown shit.

Get the normal shit out, the gold is on its way.

Again, you don't want to go with your first idea. If it's the first thing you thought of, there's a very good chance it would be one of the first things other people would think of, making it less unique and quite a bit more boring.

Part 4: Find the start of your idea, and go further

This is page two of my idea craps, and I was lucky with that sketch on the top right. I was very pleased with the overall design, that I started working with it.

Remember those gum dangly things from the hyena references? Look what I did with them! Use this stuff to your advantage! You never know what you can come up with if you take everything on the table and play with it.

Part 5: Go into detail, start building your new species up

I had a couple pages for this, but this was about where things started getting solid. You should attempt to draw the full body of the hybrid at least once during this step, to make sure everything is working, and then start looking at what you can detail further.

NOTE: I never draw hybrids as anthros right away. Doesn't mean you can't, but here's why. Anthros are humanized versions of animals, so you sometimes lose out on anatomy things the animal had. I treat hybrids as animals first, anthro them up second.

Maybe the paws can have those smoky wisps that some korean dragons have?

Maybe it'll hold a pearl in its mouth?

What if I did some fun stuff with the mane to make it not the usual "on the jaw, on the back of the neck"?

Part 6: Color palette out the ASS

DRAGONS ARE COLORFUL. HYENAS ARE NOT.

So what the hell do I even do?

Now, I admit I didn't save a copy of this image before I redid some of the colors, I actually had more natural tones on another layer and deleted it without saving, and went ahead with the more colorful stuff. Good thing I wound up choosing one of these to move forward.

Oh look, there's a color picker on the bottom, and it has...numbers? What gives?

Well, here's a look at how I deal with colors.

1. This is the region I select MOST of my colors from. Like, 80% of my colors come from here. I try not to get too wild with it, but I'm a huge fan of muted colors over vibrant ones.

2. My second favorite region for colors, I go here for accent colors. I use muted colors mostly for everything, but when I need some kind of an accent that's a bit brighter, here's where I go.

3. I'm not a fan of vibrant darks, but I have rarely dabbled into here.

Everything else is a no-go for me in character design....anything really. That's personal preference, but you should really understand your colors before wildly choosing everything you can.

Part 7: Accessorize like a High Schooler

I have no drawn image for you on this one. I probably should have, in hindsight, but my strong point has never been inanimate objects.........actually now I really should have done it lol.

With a design in mind, and a grasp on my colors, this is where I look to personalize the character even further. At this point, this is where you sit down and think to yourself "How can I make this ME?".

You can look, again, at your interests, hobbies, or maybe some things from other animals that are cool to you. Maybe you like a certain type of flower and want to incorporate it? Or what if you REALLY like crystals and want to make this thing just bleed gems.

In my case, I really like ancient Japanese history and mythology. Before going further, keep in mind I chose a lot of this out of AESTHETICS, I just like how some things look.

I started out with Shinto Shrines. These things are awesome, and one of the reasons I really want to go to Japan one day. They come in all shapes and sizes.

They are so cool and...wait. WAIT I LIKE THOSE TOO.

TORII GATES

Seriously, these are the bees knees in a design perspective. If there's ever been something that I've ever wanted to walk through REALLY. BADLY. It's one of these handsome gates. Plus, red's a cool color, and these are very often a beautiful shade of red.

Wait. WAIT. What is THAT?

A Shimenawa, otherwise known as EXACTLY WHAT I WILL DRAW.

Shimenawas are actually really cool. I played dumb but this is one of my more favorite things in old Japan. If you think all shapes and sizes applied to shrines, you have not yet seen the sheer size of how big these sacred ropes can be.

Plus, I think they looks absolutely incredible, especially when placed on trees and rocks

That's it. That's what I want to draw.

(sorry that was a huge section, but that's how you might want to consider looking for ideas. Let your thoughts flow, sometimes you'll wind up in awesome places.)

Part 8: Finalize the Design

/u/pretzelbagel This character is now yours, as is the character sheet. Do what you wish with him/her. I may draw it from time to time.

And this is where we come and take our newly made species and make it an anthro. This is where all of that playing around, looking up cool stuff, and mixing that brownie batter into delicious goodness comes down.

I run back through my color palettes and take what works, and doesn't work. In this case, I couldn't decide between drab colors or colorful colors, which is fine because yo, it's a hybrid. Porque no los dos?

I didn't feel the need for many markings, because Oriental Dragons have some very classy patterns as it is. Hyena spots were an idea early on, but I decided very quickly that they would probably clutter it up too much.

If you managed to read through all of this, you've earned yourself a cookie.

If you've felt this helped you, then I got what I wanted. Character design is SO MUCH FUN, but it works best if you don't go with the easiest path. Sometimes the cool stuff is just another thought away.

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Hello furfriends! It's been another long week of stressful work and whatnot. I, at least, am finally on Spring Break and loving it. Sadly, however, Spring has yet to melt away the snow here.

Anyway, rules are the same as usual:

• Be nice to people

• Try not to be too graphic(we've got some youngsters in our midst)

• Have fun!

Topic to get you started off: What are you looking forward to about Spring? Obviously feel free to post your own questions or whatever too. This is simply a place to be a sociable group :D

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I'll miss all you guys!!! I'll post pics when I get back. Bye ??

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1. Tell us about your most recent project (written or published). What inspired it? ?My most recent project is an unpublished short-story about a hare and a weasel fighting against time to survive a utopian society. It’s a dark touch on science fiction involving time travel and manipulation, which I have never gotten the chance to write about before, so I was very excited to get a shot at it and finish up the rough draft. It started off with a line that I couldn’t get out of my head, and when I got the chance between work and classes, I had to write it down. I don’t know what I would have ended up with had I not written that sentence down and returned to it during the drafting phase. 2. What’s your writing process like? Are you a “pantser,” an outliner, or something in between?

I believe that I am a “pantser,” for I enjoy letting the characters I come up with take me along, show me interesting things, and eventually tell me how they corrupt, save, or destroy themselves without me controlling them. If I’m lucky, I’ll have an idea to go into, as my most recent piece has shown. If I’m unlucky, I start with a character in a situation and ask myself, “What is it that this character wants?” A lot of my fiction drives me with this, and I don’t feel accomplished if I don’t find myself ending with an answer for that character’s request. It takes a good character to do what it takes to get what they want, and I’m simply there to write about how they do it.

3. What’s your favorite kind of story to write?

My favorite kind of story is one that tests a character’s morality and what he or she believes is necessary to live.

4. Which character from your work do you most identify with, and why? I identify most with Dillon from one of my first stories, “Best of the Best,” published in Heat #10. He’s a guy who carries a lot on his shoulders and understands how important everything can ultimately be. His anxiety of the unknown is something that really sits with me, and I often find myself working through the same concerns he may have within his own life. 5. Which authors or books have most influenced your work? Stephen King, Robert Aspirin, and Tui T. Sutherland all in some way influence my interest in horror, fantasy, the paranormal, and characters not typically seen in protagonist roles, such as dragons or shape shifters. They have shown me that everyone—however odd, weird or different—has some sort of story to tell. 6. What’s the last book you read that you really loved?

The latest book that I read and couldn’t put down was Sutherland’s Wings of Fire: The Brightest Night. As part of a series made primarily for children, the book is simple in its structure, but the conflicts, questions, and dragon characters within all have as much validity as any other novel out there in the market, and I found myself rooting for these characters by the second chapter. Also, who doesn’t love dragons?

7. Besides writing, how do you like to spend your free time?

I spend most of my free time tutoring undergraduate students in writing or instructing part time alongside professors in the classroom. When not working, I’m usually replaying Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us or researching and reading.

8. Advice for other writers?

Start off at your level—admit where you’re at—and just write what you love until you can’t write anymore. Then, read what you love until you can’t read anymore, and when you’re finished, do the process over until you are ready to revise and love what you do. This is how we ultimately grow, yet so many young writers get stuck in that “I’m not good enough” phase. We need to get over our skill levels in order to simply write.

9. Where can readers find your work?

My work can be found in Heat #10 or in various convention guidebooks across North America. I’m also found chatting and discussing my progress on my twitter, @Fictionfelid, where I share upcoming projects and announce any publications available. I hope to have two stories out in a couple of anthologies by the end of this year.

10. What’s your favorite thing about the furry fandom?

The furry fandom is a place where artists and fans can grow together. No matter what one is into, there’s a place for that in the fandom, and fans continually push artists to do the next big thing while artists do much the same with each other. Without the fandom, I would not be writing what I love today and speaking about it with my students, tutees, and friends.

Check out Franklin Leo’s member bio here!

Streaming @ Picarto until 18 EST (+-)

No waiting queue, I pick. However, you have priority if I started your drawing and didn't complete it in a previous stream :)

In exchange:

Pay what you want if you want, once I'm done. Basically, I take "just the tip" (provided you're not a dickha, puns! you are allowed to weep. ).

AND/OR

Remind me to check on my laundry every now and then; I have some valuable 3-wolf-moon shirts that I want to preserve.

Last Week for examples (Past couple weeks were slow because surprise guests kept showing up/phone ringing... Hopefully, people will be as asocial as I'd like today)

This post will be updated to show progress/finished stuff later tonight.

submitted by Nsyse
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So the thought of fur music sounds great... thought it was terribly done at first but then I was hooked... HALP!! Can't stop listening to this artist.... anyone else randomly get hooked on music that is not to your taste at first but then boom light switch on and can't stop??

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So this might be the only post of its kind here, but I'm happy about it and wanted to share.

I tend to get spontaneous lucid dreams (dreams where I realize I'm dreaming) pretty often. Once you realize you're dreaming you become able to shape things around you or give yourself powers.

After designing my fursona I wanted to see if I could transform into it in a dream sometime. The idea stayed in the back of my head for a while, but nothing really happened. I'd have regular dreams or some lucid dreams but I never became my sona. Well, last night I ended up having a lucid dream and remembered what I wanted to do. After realizing I was dreaming I looked at my arms and imagined them turning into my sona's. It worked! Then I imagined getting her tail (I got one, but it wasn't really the same one) and wings. It was really hard to fly at first but someone helped me and eventually I could!

So that was good :3 Looking forward to when I can do it again!

Edit: A lot of you are interested in getting lucid dreams. The subreddit /r/luciddreaming has tips and techniques on how to get started.

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So i recently discovered this site: http://redditmetrics.com/ It basically lets you see cool stats about any subreddit such as growth total subs ect. So anyways, i decided to do some simple math to see how the sub is currently growing, so here they are:

• Approximately 14.42 new subs a day

• About 5263 new subs a year(based on growth from 2014 to 2015. The growth is mostly linear so it shouldn't differ too much from year to year.)

• Currently we have 16,518 subs

• In 2016 we should have about:20,399 subs

• In 2020 (assuming current growth rate)we should have about:42,833 subs

• And just for fun we should hit the 100,000 sub mark in Approximately: 5885 days or 16.12 years.

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