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Without much news, we have some chilled out discussions and plan for AC. See you all there!

Download MP3

Watch Video Link Roundup:

• Examiner.com’s 7 signs your lover is a werewolf
• Random cool anime furry thing what is this
• Why is everyone taken tweet

News:

• Zombie Genes That Wake Up After You Die Could Help To Predict Time Of Death
• Restraining Order Against God – Filed
• Murder Suspect Eludes Arrest By Ditching Prosthetic Leg With GPS Tracker
• Truck Carrying 40,000 Pounds Of Biscuits Overturns, Twitter Reacts Accordingly

Emails:

• Dugan – “New Fur Commuting to Con”
• Grizeus – “Query: Knots and the Real Thing?”
• Jared Tamana – “Organize a Furmeet…?”
• Kit Fox – “Fatigue with everything Happening”
• Timber H Wulfy – “The fandom, my friend, and a special request.”

FC-238 Sexy Mike - Without much news, we have some chilled out discussions and plan for AC. See you all there!

Without much news, we have some chilled out discussions and plan for AC. See you all there!

Download MP3

Watch Video Link Roundup:

• Examiner.com’s 7 signs your lover is a werewolf
• Random cool anime furry thing what is this
• Why is everyone taken tweet

News:

• Zombie Genes That Wake Up After You Die Could Help To Predict Time Of Death
• Restraining Order Against God – Filed
• Murder Suspect Eludes Arrest By Ditching Prosthetic Leg With GPS Tracker
• Truck Carrying 40,000 Pounds Of Biscuits Overturns, Twitter Reacts Accordingly

Emails:

• Dugan – “New Fur Commuting to Con”
• Grizeus – “Query: Knots and the Real Thing?”
• Jared Tamana – “Organize a Furmeet…?”
• Kit Fox – “Fatigue with everything Happening”
• Timber H Wulfy – “The fandom, my friend, and a special request.”

FC-238 Sexy Mike - Without much news, we have some chilled out discussions and plan for AC. See you all there!

Without much news, we have some chilled out discussions and plan for AC. See you all there!

Download MP3

Link Roundup:

• Examiner.com’s 7 signs your lover is a werewolf
• Random cool anime furry thing what is this
• Why is everyone taken tweet

News:

• Zombie Genes That Wake Up After You Die Could Help To Predict Time Of Death
• Restraining Order Against God – Filed
• Murder Suspect Eludes Arrest By Ditching Prosthetic Leg With GPS Tracker
• Truck Carrying 40,000 Pounds Of Biscuits Overturns, Twitter Reacts Accordingly

Emails:

• Dugan – “New Fur Commuting to Con”
• Grizeus – “Query: Knots and the Real Thing?”
• Jared Tamana – “Organize a Furmeet…?”
• Kit Fox – “Fatigue with everything Happening”
• Timber H Wulfy – “The fandom, my friend, and a special request.”

[Live] Sexy Mike

Night in the Woods is an upcoming adventure game from Infinite Fall, featuring dozens of animal characters, a hand-drawn world filled with things to interact with, and an intriguing story filled with wit. After a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2013, the three-person team is finally getting close to releasing its creation, with a planned release on PC and PS4 this year. 

The team was at E3 to show off the game, which garnered lots of praise while there. Alec Holowka from Infinite Fall sat down with PlayStation.Blog to show off the game and talk about what to expect when it releases:

Discover more about Night in The Woods and download a "ghost story" for the game that you can play right now: http://www.nightinthewoods.com/

1. Tell us about your most recent project (written or published). What inspired it?

I’ve been working on a short story cycle that follows the residents of a fictional small town on the Oregon coast. Cannon Shoals is typical of such towns, intimate but clannish, full of people who are trying to balance their dreams against the reality of economic depression and the sense that the world is passing them by. I was inspired by my summers spent in the Santiam Valley, and all the little towns you drive through on winding, lonely highways — places where the water dried up or the railroad left or the mill closed and things just, as the poem goes, “fell apart.” Yeats was talking about the cataclysm of the Great War, but I think that for many places the apocalypse is more subtle and more drab. There are a lot of interesting stories to tell there.

2. What’s your writing process like? Are you a “pantser,” an outliner, or something in between?

I believe in outlines. I say “believe” because it is something like faith! Generally when I start I try to know roughly where I’m going, even if I don’t end up getting there. I find it hard to begin writing with an empty page.

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

My favorite kind of story is the kind where world-curious, upbeat animal-folk learn that there are few problems one cannot solve through the twin powers of good-natured optimism and clever banter. A lot of my stories are ones where I count it as a success if my readers come away with a smile, a lifted mood, and knowing some obscure bit of trivia that they didn’t know before.

4. Which character from your work do you most identify with, and why?

Teobas Franklyn starts my story An Iron Road Running as a starry-eyed, irrepressible kid on his first day of his dream job working on a railroad. Over the course of the novel, the work becomes more trying and he finds himself well out of his depth, but by keeping his wits about him he matures into someone people look to for help, guidance, and solutions to difficult problems. Teo, who ends the story still excited and optimistic, but with his optimism guided by world-wisdom, is the kind of person I’d like to grow up and become.

5. Which authors or books have most influenced your work?

Robert Heinlein and Rudyard Kipling, for the knack they have at celebrating and lauding individuals with indomitable spirits. Other golden-age SF writers, too: Leiber and Asimov and Cordwainer Smith. I know they seem archaic and even naïve now but I feel like that sense of optimism and grand adventure needs to be recaptured. That we should look with wonder and excitement to every new horizon; that frontiers still await us, be they physical or technological or scientific or philosophical — and that, moreover, through ingenuity and dedication and willpower and intellect, such frontiers are our birthright. Furry is such a singularity of great writers that it’s hard to name specific ones in fandom, but pretty much every time I sit down at a keyboard I wish I could write like Huskyteer and Cinnamon, or that I had the same honed gift for ideas as Rechan and Kyell Gold. Those are really the furry authors I look up to and who influence me.

6. What’s the last book you read that you really loved?

It’s a bit older now, but I finally finished Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August on a long plane flight and it’s absolutely spellbinding. It describes the process by which Europe fell, with equal parts inevitability and stupidity, into the Great War. Her ability to distill the competing factions that conspired to destroy the continent is masterful! Even if you’re not historically inclined, it’s the kind of timeless book that still makes for great reading. And, quite probably, it’s still instructive — the way something that now seems inevitable was shocking and incomprehensible at the time is likely to have some parallels for future historians of our present day.

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

Photography and cycling, particularly as the weather gets warmer and it’s more pleasant to be outside. In Berlin, the summer evenings last forever and there’s plenty of soft, golden light drenching every tree and building and park. It’s a great time to just be out in the world.

8. Advice for other writers?

Write now, worry later. I firmly believe this world is better with more stories in it. Tell them. My advice is that if you come to a fork in the road, and one path leads to putting down words on a page, take that one. Don’t worry if it’s been written before, or if your readers won’t like it, or if you’re doing something wrong — those are problems for Future You. And ignore anyone else trying to do your worrying for you. Every so often articles get passed around about the Things You Shouldn’t Do: the characters you shouldn’t write, the plot devices that are tired, the settings that are overdone, and so on. I say that’s also a problem for Future You: write now, worry later.

For some writers, writing comes easily. For others, and I’m one of them, writing is a constant, unending, and quixotic battle against all the forces arrayed against my keyboard. You can always edit out the things you don’t like later — but the words need to get written first. So when you read or hear or feel something that purports to be advice or guidance but actually keeps you from writing, recognize it for the traitor it is and ignore the impulse to listen. Write now, worry later.

9. Where can readers find your work?

SoFurry. I’ve been a resident there long enough to claim citizenship!

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

I love how creative it is, and — as a consequence — how its creativity seems to beget creativity. I tend to write for furries, and in online venues like SoFurry, which means I’m writing to, for, and with other writers. There’s a direct feedback loop that means that I know when my readers like a particular plotline or have ideas about how it should be developed — an intimate link between creators, co-creators and consumers that wasn’t really possible in the past and seems particularly strong here. I know in the past it was more common to be downbeat on furry writing, and that’s very unfortunate because the fandom has a wealth of tremendously talented individuals in it. It is simply not possible to look at the creative spark at the very core of furry and not come away inspired.

 

Check out Rob Baird’s member bio here!

Furry is “fractured” among several different sub-communities like therians, transformation fans, authors, artists, and many other groups. Is this a problem for the furry fandom as a whole, or does it work to our advantage?

Metadata and Credits Furry Community II

Runtime: 35:22m

Cast: KZorroFuego, Levi, Near, Wolfin

Editor: Levi

Format: 128kbps ABR split-stereo MP3 Copyright: © 2016 WagzTail.com. Some Rights Reserved. This podcast is released by WagzTail.com as CC BY-ND 3.0. Podcast thumbnail is by Adrian van Leen under the RGBStock license, used with permission.

Furry Community II - Furry is “fractured” among several different sub-communities like therians, transformation fans, authors, artists, and many other groups. Is this a problem for the furry fandom as a whole, or does it work to our advantage?

Furry is “fractured” among several different sub-communities like therians, transformation fans, authors, artists, and many other groups. Is this a problem for the furry fandom as a whole, or does it work to our advantage?

Metadata and Credits Furry Community II

Runtime: 35:22m

Cast: KZorroFuego, Levi, Near, Wolfin

Editor: Levi

Format: 128kbps ABR split-stereo MP3 Copyright: © 2016 WagzTail.com. Some Rights Reserved. This podcast is released by WagzTail.com as CC BY-ND 3.0. Podcast thumbnail is by Adrian van Leen under the RGBStock license, used with permission.

Furry Community II - Furry is “fractured” among several different sub-communities like therians, transformation fans, authors, artists, and many other groups. Is this a problem for the furry fandom as a whole, or does it work to our advantage?

Dear Papabear,

It's me again, and I feel bad for taking your time with this odd question, but there's this guy I like. He is kind and sweet and we listen and help each other with our problems, I told him about me being gay and he was like "no surprise there, I knew it for a while now", I asked him how he knew and he just said he had a feeling. I thanked him for having the decency to wait until I told him instead of pestering me like my other friends did. Anyway, I really like him, and he is bi, so I was wondering how do I ask him out. Every time I try I get all tongue tied and nervous because he is my first guy crush that I can actually talk to. So sorry about the two questions but how do I ask him out and how do I get over my nerves when even thinking about it gives me butterflies in my stomach?

Yours truly,
Austin

* * *

Hi, Austin,

I suspect you get butterflies because you're thinking too far ahead: that is, thinking to yourself, "What if we end up in bed?" Instead of thinking about that, I would suggest you take it slowly. Just ask him to join you to see a movie or do some other fun activity together, maybe lunch or dinner added to the mix, but don't go so far as to ask him to your bedroom (the old comical line of "Want to see my etchings?" or, perhaps more understandable to your generation, "Wanna come inside and play some video games?") In fact, don't go into either one of your homes.

Once you remove the nerve-wracking thought of sexual romance, you should be able to calm down enough to ask him out because it is a non-threatening "dinner and a movie" proposition. Do this a few times until you feel more comfortable, and then you can consider going to second base.

Good luck!
Papabear

(Sorry: We didn’t come up with that one!) Legend is a new full-color science fiction series from Z2 Comics. “What if a biological terror agent wiped out most of humanity, and our domesticated animals were left in charge? How would our dogs and cats set about ruling and rebuilding the world? Ransom, the leader of the Dog Tribe, has been murdered by a creature known as the Endark. An English Pointer named Legend reluctantly rises to lead in his place, vowing to kill the monster once and for all. From acclaimed novelist Samuel Sattin and award-winning illustrator Chris Koehler comes Legend, where cat technology rules, dogs partner with hawks, and humans may be the most beastly creatures of all. ” According to Bleeding Cool, the first run of issue #1 has already sold out and gone to a second printing. My, people like their post-apocalyptic pets, don’t they? Check out the article for a preview trailer created by Z2 as well.

image c. 2016 Z2 Comics

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Co written by Patch and Fred Patten.

Happy Pride month!  Check out this short animation, Flamingo Pride.  It screened in the 2012 annual Animation Show of Shows, an international touring festival. Read on about why the festival deserves your attention, and what this means to furries.

Ron Diamond, producer of The Animation Show of Shows, contacted Fred Patten:

Dear Fred, I want to thank you for the great write up on The 17th Annual Animation Show of Shows. I was delighted about the kindness you extended to me and the filmmakers in covering an otherwise unorthodox medley of quirky international animated shorts. I’d be grateful if you can share this with your readers, to help build awareness of alternative animation that has a message that pleases and inspires. Warm regards, Ron

The 2016 Animation Show of Shows will be the 18th annual edition.  Fred has previously reviewed it for various animation websites (here’s reviews from 2013 and 2015.) Diamond is president of Acme Filmworks, an animation studio in Los Angeles that produces animated TV commercials in a wide variety of styles. His curation of the Animation Show of Shows is well known. It consists of about a dozen short films, some from big studios like Disney and Pixar, but most by independent animators and students from colleges around the world. Most or all are prize winners at international festivals.  Many have gone on to win next year’s Academy Award Oscar in the Short Film (Animated) category.  They show Diamond’s stellar record for predicting success.

Up to now, Diamond has shown this festival at major animation studios and animation colleges mostly in North America, but also in some other countries with large studios or chapters of ASIFA (Association Internationale du Film d’Animation; the International Animator’s Association). Now Diamond is trying to raise enough funding through a Kickstarter campaign to get it into theaters where it can be seen by the public.

What does it have to do with furry fandom?

The Animation Show of Shows has had anthropomorphic animation in the past, such as Flamingo Pride. But none of it can be credited to furry fandom.

Furry is growing. Wikipedia’s “list of subcultures” includes over a hundred such as Furry and Brony fandoms. A common aspect of these subcultures is that they have grown enough to support their own independent movie making.  (There is movie making for punk, hip hop and heavy metal music – sci fi, trekkie, and horror fandoms, among others.)

Furry fandom has made short films for some years now, but in 2016 (“The Year of Furry”) the influence of features has come closer and closer to a fertile mutual relationship.  There was the high-profile embrace of Disney’s Zootopia (which had headlines for publicity outreach to the furry community), and the furry-made production of the Fursonas documentary.  Perhaps a path is being blazed, with works like this fan music video that got over 10 million views:

The maker seems very furry-influenced but might not say so.  However, it was widely furry-supported. It’s success led to her working on Dawgtown, a forthcoming indie 2D-animated feature. It’s under the radar now but I sense potential to break out for mainstream success – and if it does, it’s guaranteed to be embraced by furries. (The director did an interview for Dogpatch Press.)

Can the first furry animated film be far off?  Bronies already have Children of the Night. Furry fandom has produced live-action films as EZ Wolf’s 2012 Merry XXXmas from Room 366 and his 2013 Bitter Lake, RusFURence 2012’s Psc/Fnk, and furry convention music videos like Anthrocon 2014’s Compass. When will furry fandom’s first animated film appear?

Hopefully the trend will continue. Supporting indie animation is a great path to more, and Ron Diamond’s Animation Show of Shows awaits.

More about how fans can help:

The Animation Show of Shows, Inc. is dedicated to the restoration, preservation and promotion of animated short films. It was founded by Ron Diamond in 1999, and in 2015 it was established as a nonprofit organization.  In May, it received a grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation.

 Their Kickstarter campaign has a goal is to bring the best new international animated short films in a theatrical setting to people around the world:

“The 17th Annual Animation Show of Shows was an incredible milestone,” says founder Ron Diamond. “For the first time, the showcase of 11 shorts and four mini portrait documentaries was presented in 47 public theaters in 4 countries, which gave general audiences the chance to see great animated short films on the big screen. With this new campaign, we hope to reach an even wider audience by increasing the number of venues and expanding our publicity to make sure that everyone can share in the magic of the short films in The 18th Annual Animation Show of Shows to be released this September.”

Ordinarily, Dogpatch Press doesn’t share crowdfund appeals.  Fred and Patch feel that this one is something special apart from others.

There’s only a week left.  If you think that furry fans would enjoy and benefit from it, share it to others from their Facebook Launch Post and Launch Tweet.

Hello Everyone!

We open tonight's show with a discussion about what virtual sex might be in the future. Is it possible that the furry fandom might be getting how to roleplay right, or are we doomed to yiff in cyber hell for eternity?

Our main topic is on how to translate online kinks (or kinky fantasies) into real life activity and play. Many furries struggle with finding a healthy balance between play and pretend, and while having fantasies is both incredibly healthy and normal, sometimes it can be difficult to incorporate your kinky fantasies into your everyday sex life.

How can you differentiate between a realistic and unrealistic kink, how can you adapt the more unrealistic kinks (like vore, macro/micro, and inflation), and how can you back away from a kink you mentally enjoy but are turned off by in meatspace?

We close out the show with a listener question about how to handle an odd predicament in their D/s relationship. They have a pet who also has a pet who also happens to be the listener's Master. Confused? So are they, and they want to know if this is acceptable, how to proceed in an ethical fashion, and if this makes them poly. 

For more information, including a list of topics, see our Show Notes for this episode.

Thanks and, as always, be well!

FA 024 Kink Fantasy vs Reality - Are furries leading the future of virtual sex? How do you translate online kinks to real life play? What happens when the pet of my pet is also my master? All this and more on tonight's episode.

Art by Boilerroo

“What Is Furry Music?”  It’s a topic that Rakuen Growlithe started on Flayrah.  It can be music with furry themes, or music made by (or even popular with) furries, or both.

Rakuen dismissed much of the latter kind for not being furry enough.  I don’t think that’s quite fair.  Consider overlap with rave scenes and gaming.  Music related to those things can carry furry culture or spirit without animal themes built in.  Music has context – it even matters where you go for it (yay for dive bars!)  Some classic electronic/rave music was made with animal sounds for their musical tones. Doesn’t that bring out a little furry spirit?

I’d love to get into this and get responses from Furry music makers about how they personally define it.  This gets very much into “personal taste”, but that’s the fun of it.  Just like tasting different foods, it’s hard to say anything is right or wrong.

Arts, music, furry, and other subcultures have many overlaps.  A while back I covered the super incongruous overlap of furries and industrial music. (Part 1, part 2, part 3.)  I liked contrasting the extremes of cold, robotic and aggressive vs. warm, fuzzy and cute themes.  You could do this for many genres.  How about heavy metal?  It’s often associated with Wolves.

Here’s some personal favorite stuff that came out of 1970’s/80’s classic punk and goth.

I Wish I Woz a Dog, by Alien Sex Fiend.  (It’s easy, be a furry.)

This is like the anthem for an underground sewer club full of feral furry rats and stray mutts.  In the beginning of the song they’re banging on a real trash can.  Then it revs up like a washing machine full of spikes.  The drum machine and no bass/guitar-only sound makes exciting rawness.

With a name like Alien Sex Fiend, you know they have some wicked humor.  It’s refreshing among a tendancy for too much self-seriousness in their gloomy genre.  They’re often grouped into the subgenre of Deathrock, but they also reached out to play with stuff like acid techno.  They’re theatrical and the singer paints their album covers.  It earned them a long lasting cult following.

For fursuiters with attitude:  a goth-punk song about masks.

Who knows The Dark?  They were one of many bands from the era of The Sex Pistols and The Damned that didn’t become legendary.  Their greatest song should be.  It’s a hybrid of styles that doesn’t compare to much else, with the trashy B-movie attitude of the Misfits but the creepy grandeur of Bauhaus. (It would be awesome if either band had done music this perfectly on-point.  It’s almost Goth Oi!)

GG Allin – Livin’ Like An Animal.

Alien Sex Fiend sings about wishing to be a dog.  GG is famous for actually pooping on the stage and flinging it at the audience.  That’s what you need to know if you want to risk your innocence and know anything else about his filthy anti-music.  This is the “radio friendly” version which has a nastier version called “Fuckin’ the Dog” which I’ll hasten to add is a saying for “sitting around and doing nothing”.

The Stooges – I wanna be your dog. They call it the genesis of punk rock but I just call it a great item for this list.

The Ramones – Pet Sematary. For the title alone.

More Punk stuff:

The Damned – Rabid Over You. “You treat me like a dog, Give me a bone to chew, Frothing at the mouth, Frothing all over you, Yeah I get rabid over you”.

The Cramps – Can Your Pussy Do the Dog.  Just a mention, because how much innuendo do you need… See also I Was a Teenage Werewolf.

The Descendants – I wanna be a bear.  See also Doghouse and Dog and Pony Show.

The Misfits – We Bite.  Werewolf songs can make a whole other article. Also try Danzig – Killer Wolf or Pain Is Like an Animal.

The Suicide Machines – Sometimes I don’t mind.  It’s 90’s pop punk, but a love song to a Boston Terrier with a fursuiter in the video is almost the cutest song.

How about more goth/industrial rock.  It’s a jump from that punk stuff, but it connects through ones like Alien Sex Fiend.

Evil Mothers – I Like Fur.  Ooh, it’s eeevil and shameless about the kink theme it shares with some others above.

Nine Inch Nails – Closer. It’s one of the biggest songs ever for industrial music and I probably don’t need to remind you about that chorus.

Ashtrayhead – Good Doggy.  If you’re into this deeper than NIN, the late, great Cubanate is a band you can’t miss.  I think even most fans don’t know this side project of the singer. It’s a nifty obscurity which might suit this article better than other lists I could think to put it on.

The Cure – Burn.  A super classic club filler about a guy who turns into a crow for vengeance. “Every night I burn, Scream the animal scream.” For more weird anthropomorphism: check out the lost project of the director of The Crow, in my interview article.

Front 242 – Animal. This was kind of a weird era for this classic band when they wanted to turn into The Prodigy, but I think it works.

KMFDM – Animal Out. I miss their early-mid 90’s stuff but let’s round out the list with something fairly recent.

I can’t put GG Allin on a “furry music” list without cleansing the grossness away.  After all that not-so-cute stuff, here’s the punkest song of all:

The Wiggles – Brush Your Pet’s Hair.  Someone make a fursuit music video please!

https://www.patreon.com/thedraggetshow?ty=h BIG NEWS!! We've launched a Patreon, and will be giving you way more Dragget Show podcasts & videos powered by our fans! We discuss the launch, as well as answer your questions and all the other silly business. It's time to make Dragget Show great aga*punched* ep. 121 - Patreon Launch for Dragget Show 2.0!! - https://www.patreon.com/thedraggetshow?ty=h BIG …

Some good news coming our way thanks to Cartoon Brew: After initially bowing out of directing the Hotel Transylvania movie series after the second (very successful!) film, Genndy Tartakovsky had a change of heart and will in fact return to direct Part 3. “Acknowledging the surprising turn of events, Tartakovsky said in a statement, ‘I thought I was done exploring the world of Hotel Transylvania after the first two films, but while I was away from the franchise finishing my TV show Samurai Jack, an idea sparked that I got really excited about and made it irresistible to return and helm myself this third adventure.’  Michelle Murdocca will produce the film again, and Adam Sandler will executive produce and return as the voice of Dracula. Michael McCullers (Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Boss Baby) is writing the screenplay, and Selena Gomez and Andy Samberg will revive their roles as Mavis and Johnny, respectively. Sony has slated the third installment of Hotel Transylvania for September 21, 2018. ” Maybe then we’ll find out more about the relationship of half-vampire Dennis and all-werewolf Winnie. (They zing’d, after all!). The article at Cartoon Brew also mentions other upcoming Sony Pictures animated projects, including The Star (formerly The Lamb — a faith-based feature that follows a young donkey who helps to bring about the very first Christmas).

image c. 2016 Sony Pictures Animation

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​Dear Papa Bear,

Hello! I’ll get right to the point, I have very recently discovered the furry fandom and it seems like something I would like to get into, but not a super hard core furry. I wouldn’t want an account on any furry related websites, and I’d probably post any furry art I make on my deviant art account (I’d continue to post non-furry art as well). I would design my fursona and draw her a lot but probably not make a full fursuit.

So all this considered, would I still be considered a furry or would I just be someone who likes anthropomorphic art? Also, would I still be considered a furry if I continued posting non-furry art?

Thanks for taking the time to read!

Lot’s of love
-Verity

P.S Sorry if this is a weird question, I couldn't find what I was looking for anywhere else.
 
* * *
 
Hi, Verity,
 
No worries. Papabear enjoys “weird questions.” This isn’t weird, though, believe me; not by a long shot.
 
The fundamental question you are addressing here is “What exactly makes a furry a furry?” The problem arises out of a fundamental human need to categorize, label, and file everything in specific, neat little categories. We do this because we have a desperate desire to understand our world and it makes it easier to do so when we can say “This is This and That is That.”
 
Real life is much more complicated than that, and that includes furry life! Most of the “definitions” you hear about who is a “real furry” and who is not are utter and complete baloney. “All furries wear fursuits” (only about 20% do); “All furries have to have a fursona” (nope, many do not); “All furries are obsessed with sex” (most definitely not); “Furries are all gay boys” (statistics prove otherwise); “Bronies are not furries” (who made you God of furries to tell someone he or she isn’t one?); “Furries all think they have an animal spirit inside them” (again, no, not at all; some do, some don’t).
 
The only thing that ties us together is our love of anthropomorphic animal characters. There is no club to join, no secret handshake, no clandestine meetings where we all don ears and tails and chant while dancing around an effigy of Nick Fox.
 
As to your specific question regarding whether you’re a furry if you also draw human characters. Sure, you can be a furry if you draw non-furry characters. If you want to be considered a furry, then you are a furry. If it will help, Papabear will get out his magic wand, wave it over your head, and announce “I dub thee furry!”
 
Don’t be silly, sweetie. Be furry if you like. Don’t be furry if you don’t like. As long as you’re not hurting anyone, be and do what you want to be and do.
 
Hugs,
Papabear

Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.

The Art of Finding Dory. Preface by John Lasseter. Foreword by Andrew Stanton. Intro by Steve Pilcher.
San Francisco, CA, Chronicle Books, May 2016, hardcover $40.00 (176 pages), Kindle $17.49.

Here is another “all about” coffee-table art book about the making of a high-profile animated feature: Disney/Pixar’s Finding Dory, the sequel to the studio’s 2003 award-winning Finding Nemo, released on June 17, 2016.

But this is about the art, not the story of the movie. Since the movie takes place almost entirely underwater, there is a tremendous emphasis on the underwater lighting. Steve Pilcher, the production designer, explains how the lighting constantly changes more than out-of-the-water lighting. Not only is there different lighting for the different levels of depth in the ocean; between really deep and among the coral reefs near the surface (there is much more light closer to the surface), there is a big difference between underwater in the ocean and underwater in the tanks of the Marine Life Institute.

Even though there is no formal plot synopsis, you can figure out most of it from what is shown in this book. Dory, the blue tang fish who suffers from short-term memory loss, goes looking for her parents even though she remembers nothing about them. Her mental condition is presented less comically and more sympathetically than in Finding Nemo. Her disappearance from clownfish Nemo’s and his father Marlin’s home sets off a panicked search on their part to find her. Dory is captured by the Marine Life Institute, a research aquarium; and although this is a much friendlier environment than the dentist office fish tank in Finding Nemo, Dory must still escape if she is to find her parents in the ocean.

Ralph Eggleston, Digital painting

The Art of Finding Dory is presented in three acts, plus a long introduction by Pilcher to describe the challenges that the lighting presented. Act One describes Dory’s life around Nemo’s and Marlin’s coral reef community as the assistant to Mr. Ray, the sting ray schoolteacher. She gets separated and is quickly found again, but the experience has awakened dim memories of her parents. She leaves to find them. Act Two, set at the Marine Life Institute in Morro Bay in Northern California, has many of the above-water scenes and most of the new characters, such as Hank the octopus, Destiny the whale shark, Bailey the beluga whale, Becky the loon, and all of the sea lions, otters, hermit crabs – and humans in the film. Dory escapes back into the ocean with the help of her new friends; but Marlin and Nemo, looking for her, are captured by the Institute and destined to be sent off to another aquarium in Cleveland. In Act Three, Dory almost immediately finds her parents. Now they must rescue Marlin and Nemo from being sent far inland to Cleveland, with the aid of all Dory’s new fish and aquatic mammal friends from the Institute.

As usual with these coffee-table art books about animated features, there is an abundance of art by the production staff, from rough character sketches to storyboards to color and lighting guides to clay maquettes. Each piece of art is credited to its artist: Paul Abadilla, Max Brace, Sharon Calahan, Jim Capobianco, Jason Deamer, Greg Dykstra, Tim Evatt, Marceline Gagnon-Tanguay, Tom Gately, Annee Jonjai, Vladimir Kooperman, Rona Liu, Angus MacLane, Kyle MacNaughton, Deanna Marsigliese, Ted Mathot, Daniel López Muñoz, Matt Nolte, Brian Kalin O’Connell, Steve Pilcher, James Robertson, Dale Ruffalo, Don Shank, Andrew Stanton, Shelley Wan, Alex Woo, and more.

The Art of Finding Dory is not a collection of finished full-color stills from the movie. It is a fine behind-the-scenes look at the movie’s production.

– Fred Patten

• Buy on Amazon

SCALE is one of my favorite furry artists.  Let me suggest that most furry art deals with somewhat kitschy subject matter – not that there’s anything wrong with that. (If I said there was, it could be like saying that cartoons are just for kids, but they’re not.)  I’m just saying that in the world at large, furry art is considered “low” art.  Scale’s art defies that expectation.

He accomplishes the weird trick of rendering classical figure paintings that manage to be super hot.  It’s a cool, thoughtful style that speaks of Old Master sensibility, but gets hot-blooded beneath the painterly surface.  As a reader said – “that’s some of the most tasteful furry porn I’ve ever seen”.  

Read more: Scale’s paintings push the limits of furry art, with surprising mainstream crossover.

There’s a cool new story on Scale’s ‘Animal Shapes’ blog.  He sent this tip:

“I’ve been invited by a restaurant in my city to show my paintings there for the whole year, and as a little live performance I even finished a painting during the opening. It was very exciting, as it’s been the first time I worked on a furry painting in public (though I have done plein air landscape painting events before). Reception is always good too. I have yet to meet anybody who doesn’t like at least the general idea of what I do. I wonder when we will be seeing actual furry themed pubs and I suspect it won’t be long… what is ordinary stuff for us can be new and pretty exciting for a lot of people.” – (Scale)

Read more on Scale’s blog about his art show in “an Indian/exotic themed lounge of a restaurant”, related to his works like this:

Furry-themed pubs?  That reminds me of one of my favorite half-joking ideas of what the cyberpunk future will bring.  There are gay bars, and bars for all kinds of other subcultures, so when will there be a Furry Bar?  (Check out what’s happening with “Furclubs” starting around the world to see where it will come from.)  I think it will happen even before you can get body mods to have a real tail.

Future-Worm! is a new 2D animated TV series coming to Disney XD this August. According to the Deadline: “Created and executive-produced by Emmy-winning director Ryan Quincy (South Park), Future-Worm! centers on Danny, played by Andy Milonakis, an optimistic 12-year-old who creates a time machine lunch box, and then meets and befriends a fearless worm (James Adomian) from the future (with titanium-enforced abs). The comedy follows Danny and Future Worm as they embark on adventures through space, time, and study hall. The characters were introduced last year in a popular Future-Worm! short-form series …on Disney XD’s YouTube Channel.” Which you can find right here.

Image c. 2016 Disney XD

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