How I found the fandom.

I've been a furry for a few years now, and looking back, it's been a great thing mostly, and I feel happy and glad I found the fandom, Ive met some amazing friends, amazing people with brilliant creativity. I've learnt how to draw because of it, learnt things about myself, it has become a great part of my life, so I thought I would go back to where it all began, the events that made me find the fandom in a sense.
I guess it all started when I was a young kid, as a child I would always enjoy films or cartoons that featured talking animals instead of humans or actors, i think it wa something to do with the fur colours really haha. Indeed, one of my favourite films is Disney's Robin Hood, which features anthro characters, with a fox as Robin. I think Disney did have an influence, as I grew up watching a lot of those films, bought on VHS back then, films like Lion King, Aristocats, films like that I always enjoyed more.  I also enjoyed The Animals of Farthing Wood, back as a kid this was a pretty big thing for me, as the series would kill off characters without warning, which I never expected to see.
Video Games as a child were also an influence. My favourite games back then were the Sonic the Hedgehog games on the Megadrive, games I still own and play to this day. Back then though, I rarely played as Sonic unless I had to, I always prefered Tails, the way he looked was so cute, I couldn't help it, and plus, a two tailed fox I thought was pretty awesome. The Sonic cartoons as a kid were also where I loved tails, the original series that is, the others just were't as good in my opinion, especially Sonic Underground, that went way off track. 
Moving on to the Playstation after that, anthro characters in the games I played then got rarer. It was then I found the Final Fantasy series, which later became my favourite game series. Final Fantasy IX however, is where I started to love anthro characters, I think that game was a major turning point. In FFIX, there is a race known as the Burmecians, anthro rats. As soon as I saw Freya Crescent I instantly thought she looks awesome, what with her spear, dress style and abilities. Anthro rats are still one of my all time favourite species, not near as much as I love otters though haha. 

The biggest influennce though is the Redwall series, a book series where every character is anthro, and honestly if it wasn't for those books, I wouldn't be a furry. I love them, great adventure, great characters, fantasy and imagination all in one place. It started when I accidentally stumbled on the tv series back in 2006, though the books are much better, I loved how the characters looked in the advert for the show, so I gave it a watch and loved it. I mean, anthro mice as main characters, what a hook! Add in an otter here and there amongst others and that made me resarch it, finding out that is was actually a book series. A little trip to the library in early 2007 found me a few of them, and I started reading them properly, I have read the whole series now and am buying them myself to own, of which i currently have around half of them.
It was this way that I found the fandom itself. The summer of 2007 got me my first ever mobile phone, yes, my family has always been slow with technology until lately. Anyways, I found that I could get internet on there cheaply, so I did. I decided to do a search for Redwall art, it didnt yield much, but I did find a few pieces. One of them led to an old website called FurryAi. It was here I found out about the amazing fandom. I set up an account, calling myself Dark Otter, keeping to myself and faving a few pieces here and there. I met a few friends, though not close, and when the site forums went down, I pretty much stopped going there.
Shortly after, in mid 2008, I found a writing site with some furry stories, again, interested I signed up, and started posting a few in people's interactive stories, as a choose your own path kind of thing, and started my own, a redwall adventure that you could choose your own path. It did well, though not compared to my Pokemon adventure story, that did extremely well, though as time went on, I started to feel a little burnt out from all the writing, so I passed along my interactives to a friend's account, only to log back on every once in a while to see how they would progress. Sadly, that friend has since passed away.
I went a little more quiet after that, then in late 2009, after meeting a few furries through facebook, I made finally made my fursona, Deyna. It took a lot of thinking, originally I was going to have a wolf fursona, but it didn't feel right for some reason, then he literally just appeared in my head. The only change I have made to his overal appearance since then is hos hair colour, for the first few months he had red hair, though purple is really more his style and suits him much more I think.
In late 2010, due to a recommendation from a close furry friend of mine, I joined FurAffinity, it was here I learnt how big the fandom was, the amount of people sharing their art and stories blew me away. Through the next two years, I would slowly post chapters of Deyna's story, though I haven't worked on it for around a year now.
In 2012, thanks again to my close friend, I picked up a pencil and started to draw for myself. When I was younger I hated to draw as I was never any good, thouh due to the support from furry friends, I got the confidence to try and started posting my pictures, each one i'm proud of as i could never do that before, and I can feel myself improving each time.
So as we are now midway through 2013, i can only imagine what else the future will bring, especially for the furry fandom that I'm proud to be a part of

So there you have it, a brief thing to show how I became a part of an amazing thing, and I would love to take this chance to thank all the amazing people I have met along the way who have inspired me, supported me, and just been amazing friends to me, I consider you all to be my family.

Anthony Williams
Deyna Lorne