What is Furry Art?
In simpler words, furry art can be considered as a term that depicts anthropomorphic animals, fursonas, characters, avatars, or even personas. They can either be humanoid (close to being human) or feral (aggressive characters). Now all these types of characters are created with furry fandom acting as the main audience. But know that, among these works, some are intended for a much larger or more common audience.
As we have talked earlier that the most common idiom of furry is the presentation of humanoid figures who have animal traits. Now what kind of animal traits can they be? Well, they can either be ahead, a tail, or even ears, and if not that then fur, and so on. But this doesn’t always have to be the case as artwork also includes completely non-humanoid animals having facial expressions as the only anthropomorphic trait.Also, We have a complete list of Art and Design Courses for art lovers
Where did the concept of furry art come from?
There have been many theories regarding the origination of art, but the most commonly accepted one is that it has roots in the indie comic and science fiction/fantasy fan culture of the 1980s. Well, the fantasy/fiction part has to be true to a great extent as we’re talking about wild, tamed, human-like characters.
In the 1960s and 70s, there was a huge boom in underground comics due to the fact that the Comics Code Authority had heavy censorship of the comic book industry. During this time, people like Robert Crumb created cat comics which were then made into a film by Maverick animation, and Ralph Bakshi being the director. It is because of the underground comics’ culture that the concept of black and white comics was introduced in the 1980s. During this time, many of the first proto-furry comics and APAzines started to appear.
What is the Purpose of Furry Art?
The term furry not only describes some kind of art but also a diverse community of artists, fans, writers, gamers, and role players who have created for themselves an anthropomorphized animal character which is also known as a fursona. The furries they create simultaneously facilitate people and communal creativity with the character who inhabit their own worlds and those of others. But sometimes all these characters might not have a fantasy world to inhabit but are rather depicted in normal life. For example, someone may have that one character that encloses in it all that he or she is. On the other hand, there will be another character that imbues certain traits across multiple characters. Thus we can say that with this art, people are trying to downplay or exaggerate physical and personal traits that they have in their characters. Some people who are too serious about this character depicting thing treat the characters very seriously with sprawling lore and intricate designs. While there are some people who just let whimsy creatively carry them along. Thus it depends on people as to what they want, to what extent they are serious about it.
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With this art, there is no certain rule that you have to follow. To explain it more clearly, let us take a look at this quote from Jonathan Duncan. He says that “with furry, you are the intellectual property”. This means that there is no hard and fast rule to abide in this art because the world of furry is all about whatever people make it to be. You can make a whole human body but give it a wolf face in the end. Or draw a dog and give it two legs instead of four. It all depends on what you are trying to show to the world.
So you should know that this art is built around such art that a person himself commissions or creates for himself. No other people’s opinion matters here except for you. It gives people peace of mind or power to express themselves or their character in the form of art. A character that can either be something that doesn’t concern you or the one that depicts who you really are. Due to the fact that furry art had a huge impact on people, it continues to influence today’s popular fantasy fiction and children’s cartoons.
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