Congratulations, you have decided to enter the furry fandom! Now it is time to sit down and design your Fursona. I know you are thinking, “But Seeksie, I can’t draw to save my life. How am I going to create them?” Well, I have two words for you. ‘ Furry Bases’. The word base can mean many things but in the character art world, it refers to line art an artist creates that is either free or you have to pay to use, then you can use an art program to fill in the base with your desired colors. In this article we will go over some places where you can find and how to fill them in.
All your base belong to us: the search for the perfect Furry base
You may be thinking, “Where can I find these bases?” A good place to try to find one is to look at your favorite artist and see if they have any in their galleries. If they do great, that means you get a piece of your freshly minted character in your fav artist’s line art. This is also the time to figure out if you want to spend any money on the base. There are plenty of free options, though it takes some time to find one in a style you like. You can do a search on Artconomy for bases, for instance. When you do use a base, make sure to credit the artist of the line art.
Turn up the Base: Coloring your furry base
So you have spent many minutes and hours finding the best base to represent your furry self, now what? Well, it is time to fill those lines with your colors and patterns you desire. It may seem like a daunting task but there are plenty of free programs out there to help you with this. Krita, Firealpaca and even the paint on your PC are free tools you can use. You may also look into trials of other software like clip studio paint. Using whatever tools you deem necessary, fill in the base how you like! If you are having problems with the programs, check out some tutorials on YouTube. There are plenty of tutorials on a plethora of different programs. Make sure to take your time and have fun.
The birth of your Fursona: the finished furry base.
After hours of work, you now have your new character. This is a great start to getting more commissions from them, like con badges or maybe even a fursuit. Having a nice reference sheet will help artists bring your characters to life. When you are posting your fursona, make sure to credit the original artist of the line art. So go out there and create a character!
A special thanks to Seeksie for providing a free to use bases! Click on the links below to access.
With white background:
https://artconomy.com/submissions/20367
https://artconomy.com/submissions/20368
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