Topic: If you have a fursona, how did you chose the species?

Maybe I'm overthinking it, but it feels like for many furries it would be an Important Decision™ about self-identity, right?

What was your process? Was it "this animal's traits reflect me", "I just like this animal a lot", or something else?

I wouldn't call him a fursona as he's not literally me but I do have a mascot character. He's a mish-mash of features of cute animals and flowers- the species choices have no relative meaning other than their cuteness and their resemblance to shape language I wanted, it's the rest of him that was designed with a lot of meaning.

My sona is obviously a Lucario. In the fandom, Lucarios are portrayed as being sexually insatiable. I felt that fits my personality the best.

Plus, the artist who first asked me what my sona was over a decade ago, I had to think of something

My route was pretty convoluted.
I drew feral canines before I knew what furry was. Then I found dutch angel dragons and made a design, but it didn't ever feel like a sona.
I made whole bunch of designs, that didn't stick, based on reptiles, dutch ADs and canines: https://imgur.com/gallery/evolution-of-tiena-HgYIiX1
2019, after 2 years being in the fandom I put together the aspects I liked the most, and the design has barely changed ever since. post #6284481

Then I made a vrchat model of it and many know me as this creature, which only reinforced the identity.

My main sona is just a critter I like drawn in a way that's easy to replicate.

My smut sona I designed to be a guy I'd enjoy seeing in porn.

stellar_hips said:
Maybe I'm overthinking it, but it feels like for many furries it would be an Important Decision™ about self-identity, right?

What was your process? Was it "this animal's traits reflect me", "I just like this animal a lot", or something else?

I guess "fursona" implies anthro? I liked Pokemon Mystery Dungeon (explorers of time) a bit too much, so my "pokesona", which I'll make art of someday, is a Houndour. Honestly, I don't even remember when exactly I decided that, or if any logic went into it. I probably just wanted to be a cool doggo, and it felt right. At some point in the past, I probably would've went with Zangoose or Totodile, but those became other relevant characters in the lore.

My sona is a pine tree/fern hybrid because I didn't vibe with any animal species. If I made a new sona today they would probably be a goat or deer though.

regsmutt said:
My main sona is just a critter I like drawn in a way that's easy to replicate.

My smut sona I designed to be a guy I'd enjoy seeing in porn.

Based design philosophy

I always loved dragons and the thought of shapeshifting into one

i mean i dont got a sona but i do have several ocs, my logic is just "ok what animals do i think are cool" and then i make them (and by make them i PROCRASTINATE)

in my observation, both personally and of others, a good fursona is rarely something that is truly a "decision". in a way, you don't choose your fursona, your fursona chooses you. "try on" different species, design diffrent characters, create stuff, whatever, eventually something will just feel right.

personally, fish was just kind of happenstance, originating from a joke; a reference that no one (even within the potential target audience) got. but over time it stuck, it felt like something that was "me".

At first I guess I just went with some random canine because I'm boring. He was originally going to be a wolf at first, but I later changed him into a coyote to be a bit more "original" and other reasons that I won't get into.

I also tried making my fursona into other less common species like kangaroos, donkeys, thylacines, et cetera, but I just couldn't connect with them as much, so coyote it is.

For a long time, during my long furry-in-denial phase, I had thought about what species my fursona would be. When brainstorming creations, I tend to avoid the most commonly used ideas, like dog, cat, fox, etc., but I couldn’t find anything that connected with me.

Then, being a longtime metalhead myself, I became curious of Aggretsuko, which got me interested in red pandas. Ultimately, I felt a connection, so to speak, with the species’ aspects, including the color scheme and other sorts. So yeah, my fursona is a red panda.

My fursona is Sniper TF2 as a crocodile.

In 2023-2024 I was thinking what fursona I could be after spending tons of post-covid time with furries. I asked my boyfriend sitting next to me what species I could be (he's not a furry), he looked at me and said red panda.

So I designed myself a red panda. Fast forward a few months of furry species research, I resonated the most with ferrets, so I made Float. Ferrets are stinky and crazy. Fits me perfectly.

Kitsune is literally the best species. You have power. Beauty. Immortality. And if you need anything else you can just shapeshift to get it.

More importantly they're cute and fluffy.

Naruto, Lilo And Stitch, Ratchet And Clank, Sonic The Hedgehog, Pokemon, and One Piece significantly altered my brain chemistry as a child.

I don’t have one nor ever plan on making one. I like just being a normal human. Blasphemy, I know, but I guess it just spans off of my interest in human on anthro content. If I was forced to make one, a pigeon like this one basically sums up my intelligence fairly well.

I might be an outlier, but the traits associated with a particular animal/creature have basically no impact on what I choose to make a character as. The same goes for my fursona, though I really only recently started using him like one. I just made a weird skull headed kobold because I liked the way it looked, it could have easily been a dragon or an argonian or something else I like, lol.

Mine was assigned by the People's Commissariat of Anthropomorphization. I thought that's how everyone got theirs?

I chose a husky because I like huskies and I thought it was a super clever way to represent my ethnicities

I like jumping spiders ::3

For my primary OC it was a really long process with an origin in using someone else's design (I have a bad habit of doing that) and reworking from that point to one more generic.

Started as a Khuvrakh - made her into my own species (Tallis) - turned that to just be generic lizard with frills.

I also have a cat guy OC who always was a cat, but started as being horribly scarred on half his face. I trimmed that back to him being half-grey, half-orange instead. I picked cat cause I like kitties.

fluffy kitty go wee

Big fan of Bugs bunny growing up, so my main became a bunny.

I like dragons, and I wanted something related to the Mario series. Rexes are dragons from the Mario series.

I don't have a fursona right now. I do have a thing for rat/mouse characters, 'cause Geronimo Stilton comics, An American Tail, The Great Mouse Detective (and a few "meme" characters such as Moushley or Gwen Geek xd) really took my heart at one point. :v

During COVID lockdowns, I grew out my hair. One time during a video call with a friend at that time, she joked that my fursona could be a sheltie or a similar long-haired herding dog, because supposedly my hair and the way I wore it looked like the ruff of such a dog. I laughed it off at first, but as months went by, the idea grew on me and a pretty long time after, I drew an anthro rough collie for the first time, who's my first and primary sona to this day. That wasn't even the first time I adopted an off-hand joke suggestion as an actual part of my identity.