By "anthro'" I mean models combining human and animalistic attributes.  But they are known by several names, anthros, anthromorphics, anthro-morphs, "funny" animals, furries, hybrids, "Moreaus" (in homage to the HG Wells' character) and others I can't immediately recall.

I'm curious.  Which are your favorites?

They can be geared for Poser or DAZ; it doesn't matter to me.  They can be serious or humorous, "realistic" or "cartoonish".  They can be stand-alone meshes or morphs and/or add-one parts for existing figures.

Obviously, the motif is not everyone's cup of tea.  But that's okay.  Some people prefer soccer to "American" football, while others care for neither.  There's no right or wrong answer.  But for those who do like to compose scenes with "anthros'", why don't we share examples and anecdotes.  What got you interested in the concept and how have 3D rendering tools allowed you to visualize those ideas?

Some of you may wish to skip the following retrospective and just look at the comparison render.

In 1985 I doodled my first anthropomorphic character.  At that time, I had no idea a "fandom" centered upon "funny animals" both silly and serious.  Such was the way of things living in a small southern town before the internet (well, before Windows 95 let everyone and their great aunt easier access).  By 1990 I had finalized her overall look and proportions and officially named her "k'tharr Rauthimas".  (Yes, how wonderfully pretentious.)  By 1992 I went to my first couple of weekend sci-fi conventions.  It was at an early Dragon*Con that I met someone who had a stack of photocopied works by people named Eric Schwartz, Terrie Smith and Ken Sample.  What?  Other people drew "serious" funny animals?  (Well, Eric's were comparatively a bit more whimsical but with an adult "edge".)  By the mid 90s, I settled upon K'th's attire, adding a mini biker's jacket to her fingerless gloves and leg-warmers.  (Hey, some guys like hosiery and high heels, 80s inspired "rumpled" leg-warmers are my "thing".)  Christmas 1995 I got my first Windows based PC and Jan. 1, '96, I joined CompuServe (it offered a local access number).  Come summer 1997, a locally owned ISP offered a flat rate plan that allowed me access to the world wide web.  Hoo boy!  Suddenly, I realized I was a very small fish in a very large ocean!  I thought I had created something "unique".  FAR from it!  Sexy cat-girls were a dime a dozen.  Like I stated above, I doodled her while living in a small southern town.  Besides no internet (or its earlier equivalent, an electronic bulletin board service), I was not part of any fan group mailing service.  I was quite "insulated".

Okay, let's jump ahead a few years.  I dabbled in some VERY basic digital modeling with Caligari's TrueSpace and eventually learned of and purchased Poser, starting with version 4.  I thought it might prove interesting to adapt "K'th" into a digital medium.  I started with the "Second Nature" figures LemurTek created, fusing body parts of the P4 nude male and female figures with the heads (and in some cases, rear legs) of the program supplied lion, wolf and cat.  I actually wound up with a (arguably) passable version.  A texture turned an upper garment into a leather biker's jacket and I found a pair of leg-warmer props, the two distinctive element's of K'th's wardrobe (such as it was).  It worked, but I knew "squat" about magnet shaped morphs to give her proportions closer to my original illustrations.  Little Dragon came along and followed upon LemurTek's concept.  Accept in his case, he fused the head of the (then recently released) Millennium Cat with the body of Victoria 2.  Okay, this was getting closer to my "ideal".  Then DAZ released Aiko 3 and the figure's versatility jumped when Beth Capsces offered a set of morphs including a "cat mouth".  When I combined it with a set of textures Daio made for V3 (based upon photos of her favorite cat), I finally got the body shape I wanted from the start.  I thought this was the end of the story.

But something was stirring at RunTimeDNA.  The creator of Koshini, Lady LittleFox, had something in the works.  Paralleling what both LemurTek and Little Dragon did, she decided to use the body of an existing figure, one very popular and thus having a lot of wardrobe items already available, Aiko 3.  But instead of taking the head geometry of an existing animal, she modeled her own from scratch, one that reflected her lighthearted tastes.  She released it as "Melody".  (I'll be honest; it's a lovely but somewhat vague name.  I would have gone for something like "Felicia" or "Felina" and named the Hiro 3 based male counterpart "Felix".)  Yes!  This was so close!  But, something, I'm not sure what exactly, was missing.  Then Beth Capsces saved the day once again.  She developed and released a set of add-on morphs, "Furries for Melody".  Suddenly, Melody could be shaped into several distinctive mammals, felines, both large and small, canids including wolves, dogs and foxes, even mustelids and rodents like mice.  Starting with one of the snmall cat "presets", I tweaked the settings until I sat back and saw K'th in polygonal form "looking" back at me.  This, THIS is wanted I wanted to achieve for literally years!  With the addition of some foot paw morphs by JENelson (aka Anchronicity in other circles) and a quasi realistic "pelt" by Capsces, I finally caught lightning in a bottle!

Here is K'tharr Rauthimas as she appears today compared to a hand drawn illustration (inks and colored pencils) I created in August 1998.  Obviously, there are a few differences.  I changed the color of her leg-warmers to more or less match the color of her mane.  I've also given her a belt with little pouches to carry small items.  But I must saw I'm honestly surprised how close the digital version favors the traditional media.  Or maybe it's just my delusional ego blinding me to a far less flattering reality.

So, what are your anecdotes and preferred figures?

Sincerely,

Bill

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Tempt the Hand of Fate and it'll give you the "finger"!