What is the Furry Fandom Family on IMVU? IMVU has created a safe space to discover your creativity, create your fursona, and be a part of the Furry Community that extends globally. You can easily be yourself without being judged, as you meet other furries from all over the world. Design your own cartoon pets using our one of a kind pet avatar maker! Share your creations online, or add them to all sorts of customizable merchandise. Create unique, personalized gifts for pet lovers, or just treat yourself and your pet!

A fursona or ‘sona’ as previously described in an earlier post is a character that represents yourself online, kind of like an avatar. Some of us make ours into fursuits, others use them as our mascots or logos (for example Enzo, mascot of the British suit maker Faruku Costumes or Matrices the mascot for the famous suit maker/tip giver of the same name in the community!). Even those of us who use our character as a logo often have art or fursuits of those characters (see my own personal example of Hex here and here)!

Important questions to answer before I move on to how to make one:

Can I have more than one?

Sure! There’s no limits! Some people, myself included, have gone through several before finding the one we felt suited us best! Even then you can have more than one at a time!

I don’t like X aspect of my fursona, can I change it?

Sure, designs and ideas adapt and change all the time! When I first started out with Riptide, he had five horizontal red stripes on his face. When I got his suit headbase from Maibey / KCCostumes, I realised his snout would be much too small to assemble all five on. By that point, I had also realised many artists designed him with only three stripes as depicted below!

What’s the difference between an OC and a fursona?

Just a title to be fair. Although some people make a distinction that a fursona is the “truest” representation of themselves and that their OCs are other characters they just liked, or fursonas they lost interest/connection with. Other terms can be “primary” and “secondary” fursonas, the majority of the art is usually found under the primary fursonas and the secondaries are adopts they just liked, other character designs or retired primaries.

Do all furries have fursonas?

Nope! Some people use animal logos online – doesn’t make them a furry either!

I like a species or have/want to have one that is ‘closed’ or has rules, how does this affect my design ideas?

I’ll go into more detail later on the topic of closed/open species, but something important to note is this – some of these species are copyright protected, others are community enforced rules. There’s nothing from stopping you from making a fursona that breaks those community rules (NOT copyright) but be warned that the community won’t be best pleased!

OK! So, how does one go about getting a fursona of their own?

Well, there’s a few ways!

1. You design the character yourself

2. You commission an artist to design the character for you based on your ideas

3. You purchase a pre-designed adopt/character from an artist/previous owner

So to make your decision logical, let’s think of some questions you need to ask yourself first!

Do you have a species/hybrid/creation in mind?

Maybe it’s an animal you just really really like or something you relate to. Maybe you’re a little indecisive and want to mash your favourite critters together!

Do you have a colour palette/pattern in mind?

Got a favourite colour? Why not use that? Some people have even made their favourite colour a key aspect of all their main sonas (such as the purple found in Muelin, Lupita and Kyovo – the fursonas of misswolfiee). There’s some great resources online for finding colour palettes if you’re a little indecisive and if you’re stuck for patterns, why not turn to nature or art? Draw inspiration from whatever you love!

Do you have artistic skill? Do you want to use a base?

These are certainly important questions to ask! Some of us aren’t blessed with the ability to pick up a pencil and sketch out our visions – for those of us, there are bases! But a base isn’t as personal and unique to you and sometimes costs. Other people may just feel that they lack the flare to be able to get their character perfect!

That’s great! I want to…

Design the Character Myself

Grab yourself a pencil or an art tablet, design what you imagined and test out the colour schemes and patterns you liked and do some experimenting! You may find your pallets looked better in different patterns to how the species occurs naturally or the animal you first imagined isn’t quite right! Keep tweaking! Take your time, test your ideas, come back to it later and continue working! When you’re happy, congratulations you have a fursona!

Pros:

Complete control of the design process
Ability to test new ideas
Personal design

Cons:

You may find the critter doesn’t look quite right
Time Consuming
Sometimes an artist’s input can provide what you need to tweak the design

Commission a Design

Best suited if you’ve only got a vague idea, or perhaps a species/colour idea but not much else. You can commission an artist for an individual design, or, much better a reference sheet of your character. There are a couple of considerations to bear in mind –

1. An artist may not do an individual fullbody or several designs of your character, only a full reference sheet with minimal tweaking – reference sheets can be expensive – averaging between 50 and 150 dollars per design! So you may want to investigate artists and find someone whose style you like ahead of time and start saving!

2. Not all artists work from written descriptions or scrapbook/moodboard style commissions. A lot of artists ONLY work with visual sources (such as an already completed character design) and this is their choice. Other artists may charge a surcharge for working from a description. Why? Well there’s more of a margin for error and imperfection when working from these sources provided by a client – small details missing or incorrectly placed – this can cause additional stress to an artist!

3. I can not stress this enough – DO NOT ASK FOR SHADING ON A REFERENCE PIECE – this is a piece of art intended to hand to other artists to work from when you want them to do a piece for you and it’s easier for colour picking and perfecting design.

4. The artist may never get your design perfect, or your ideas might change in the artistic process – chat with the artist regularly and be reasonable – art is a two-way process!

Pros:

Brilliant if you have an idea on species/colour/palette but no time/skill to work on
A personalised piece unique to you
Reference sheets act as a perfect piece for other commissions in the future

Cons:

Expensive
Requires open communication to be an effective transaction
Delays as WIPs are adapted

Buy a premade design/character

You’re flexible, you honestly don’t mind what you get, you just know you’ll find the one for you somewhere. A good place to start is either with an artist you like, or just a general search of a particular species you’re interested in. Don’t rush into these purchases, consider it a bit like window shopping! There’s a few different ways to purchase these particular designs/characters.

Auction

Hosted in a variety of places, such as Furaffinity, DeviantArt or on auction sites like Furbuy or the Dealers Den. Take some time to consider what you like and don’t like, what you want in your character and then do some exploring online. Some of these auctions can

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