#palette generated from coolors.co if anyone wants one :^)

[wizerdbattle]

Colour palette thingy. IGNORE his bald spot!

[sunsetscales]

*Intertwines my claws dubiously*

Hello anon, and others alike, Never gave me permission to give advice. I have been writing and world building for about 6 years, and I feel like I can say I'd have a few pointers.

FIRST: Pick your muse, what do you WANT want, not species, that doesn't matter yet, unless your muse is that specific species, like dragons. (okay going under the read more here for everyone's sake)

Go onto pintrist, coolors.co, go onto a free art program and start picking out some of your favorite colors, or finding some palettes you like, mess with them, blend the colors until they work together, or until they're a shade you love.

OR Find a theming you like a lot, say you like medieval/fantasy chivalry, start making a knight, paladin, etc. Figure out what they do, where they are? Are they in a generic fantasy world? Do they slay evil dragons for a living? Do they lay with dragons for a living ;3c~

Your muse can be anything you want it to be, just as long as you look at it, and slowly build up in your mind what your fursona is. Like Never, is it you? Or like me, is it a fragment of yourself that you expand upon?

From there, simply figure out what else you would like! Just go with your gut, it'll lead you better than anything else. And if you want to change it, change it! Change your species, hair color, design, markings.

You got to jump into the water with it, do what you think is cool, put as many funky colors, markings, hairstyles, and other bits you want!

If you need a reference, on FurAffinity, there are free to use fursona base refs, where a artist puts out a free to use ref base for anyone to use and try out. Just use that if you feel self conscious doodling. Or as well, artists will sell adoptable sonas for like $5 to easily $100+ (USD), you can buy one of those for your first tastes, and learn from there. As well, if you're making your sona, there are tons of color pallets on FA as well, that people post for others to use, the Furry community, whether you have a fursona or not, welcomes you :3c.

And if all of it fails, take a pokemon you like, change their colors, or give them a few extra features, bam! Fursona. Or hell, go on Puzzles and Dragons, look at their older units, pick those out for a fursona, no one plays that game anymore, no one will know.

The worst thing you'll do is scare yourself from trying, just doodle, look at funny animal videos, look at spicy images. Find inspiration from everyday things. Here we'll go through it together.

Practice: Back when I was a kid, I used to have a beach in my back yard. Dad leveled an area of forest, had a guy build a pond, imported sand. I was basically out there every day because there was a pond in my backyard of course I was.

I loved the way that the sand would form little impressions from rain water that would come down. If you didn't know, those are called Rills, the og name of my fursona, now his middle name, because I like Hesper more. So we have water, I like water formations like that. Okay what else?

Well I like the color purple and pink, and as well, I love the night time. It's spooky, and calm, and romantic. Sunsets are purple/pink-ish, so we have water and sunsets. So why not a sunset over water?

For me, I already knew my fursona was going to be a dragon, I'm world building a fantasy world, I like dragons, and I have a custom species that is almost like a dragon. So I just put him like that. But from the sunset, I got purple, wines, oranges, blues, and the theming of water, twilight, light, and whatever else anyone would associate with dusk.

So, purple/pink body, orange hair (later changed to pink), bi-pedal digitigrade dragon, has no wings, because that's a hassle to draw always. But where do I go from there?

For me, I sat down with myself, and I let it all play out like a movie, who would I be in this fantasy world? Hmm well, for first things I'd be a little magic at the least, so he'd have magic. He'd have a cool tail, I love tails, maybe the mid of his tail could split into two, because I'm genderqueer, guy and gal. As well, for me, I'm a sucker for stockings, so I want him to have stockings on his legs and arms, that are made out of his own fur.

Then came the ultimate resource! Copying someone else's design ideas <3. For me Hesper (my sona) got his muzzle pattern, where it slopes down into horns on his jaw, from some character from a gatcha I've never seen before. His horns are up down up from the mid of his head, he's got long/medium hair from me, his chest and tummy are hairy bc mine is hairy, and his eyes are blue, because blue balanced out his other colors well, and as well my eyes are blue, also water.

It's not monolithic design steps, its one at a time, treat it as such, I've only really gotten to a point where I like his design. And even then I add on some things here or there, like alt forms! Which are a great resource if you like your sona, but want something just a little bit different sometimes. Hesper himself can turn feral, or into like a werewolf from skyrim, bipedal but runs on all fours.

But just have fun! I've had like, three/four fursonas before this current one, and even the old ones, I can still use and enjoy! My first one, Wick, is my pen name, and the name I use for Drawing. Viclon (yes harhar I know Vick) is a cool character, I didn't like how I personified him though, so he needs a re-work, but he was a dragon with flowers and ivy on him, who doesn't like that? Currently Hesper. And soon enough, I want to make a sona to represent my worldbuilding! I've enjoyed myself some kitty cats as per my two feline furry bfs, so I'm picking out a big cat myself, snow leopard/lion hybrid. But as it's for my world building, I'm going to put my own spin on it, and backstory for the species, where they live in my fantasy world, what they eat, what they look like, what their colors are, etc.

Just have fun, trust your gut on what you'll like. Change your mind, re-do things, have fun!

how did you come to your sona(s)? I've been wanting to actually get into the furry community more but i have so much trouble with the sona part

great question!

So first off, for those who don’t know me well, I have a total of Four Sona’s: Never the Dragon, Reven the Dragon, Roxy the Dragon, and Lis the Moth.

NEVER THE DRAGON: He’s been around since the beginning. That’s actually me! He came into existence around 2009, but wasn’t officially a fursona til I first learned about the furry fandom in 2013. Pretty much, I said ��I’m a Blue Dragon” and that’s how Never was born. He took my name, which is also Never

ROXY THE DRAGON: Is a fursona I actually designed and made for a friend, my partner at the time. Roxanne is no longer alive however, and as such I took the Dragon back to remember her with (:

REVEN THE DRAGON: Born in 2017 because I needed a mascot for a sideblog I made, and didn’t want to have it relate to my main. His colors are the Tumblr default colors, with his tail being the notification icon ;) Reven is Never backwards

LIS THE MOTH: She’s small, fluffy, and her personality is a complimentary opposite to Nevers. Her colors reflect her true name; BLISS.BMP

The first three were Dragons because I love Dragons. I made Lis the moth to specifically branch away from that tho; diversitise my portfolio. Birds, Bats, and Moths are my three favorite non-Dragon animals, and thats where I got her from

As for making your own, alas I can’t help too well 😔 Never’s a Dragon because I love them so much. It was almost a given; had I found the furry community before Never existed, he still would have been a Dragon. The most common advice I’ve seen around is “Take your personality and assign it your favorite animal” but that only goes so far. it’s like, mid advice, but alas it’s all I have 😔

[wholesomespecies]

What are your thoughts on copying colors for an OC from an existing adopt? Not downright copying the design, but just eyedropping the colors. The species will be wildly different so I doubt anyone will notice if I just copy some pink and blue coloring. I'm asking because I suck at palettes in general and I've thought about doing it ;v; Is it bad etiquette?

I had that happen to me before, and it’s a tricky situation. Ideally, you don’t want to directly eyedrop colors from existing adoptables. Palettes can’t be copyrighted, but there are some moral/ethical issues about eyedropping directly from an existing design (in my opinion). 

If you like a certain color scheme that an adoptable was designed with, you can always work with similar colors to create your own adoptable. Eyedropping can sometimes lead to awkward situations with the original artist if you’re caught - especially if they know you or are friends with you. 

In my opinion, it’s probably best to avoid situations like that, so I wouldn’t do it. 

- Mod 🦄

Edit: (Sorry, was a fast response because I was cooking at the time.)

I also want to add that you’re having troubles with coming up with your own palettes, there are plenty of palette resources out there for you to use as well!

Here are the two I recommend: 

http://www.colourlovers.com/

http://www.colourpod.com/

If you use palettes from either of these sites, please remember to credit them. I’m sure there are many artists like you who struggle with palettes as well and would appreciate those resources. ^^ 

(🦄 types faster than me D:< )

First let me say I’m not an authority figure on this, lol! But color picking art pieces isn’t uncommon, especially with the ease of our current digital age. From what I’ve seen it’s generally encouraged for amateur artists to color pick a few professional art pieces to create a balanced palette. All in all it tends to be a good learning experience, and like master copies, once you grasp the understanding of good palette creating techniques, you tend to drop the practice in favor of being able to do it on you own.

That being said, it is a bit different with species because the colors are also part of the design someone is purchasing. I would recommend color picking a couple designs with similar palettes instead of using an entire palette from one design. You could also use this as practice to match the colors together since, even though many designs share similar color palettes, you can find their hue and saturation can to be vastly different!

As learning experiences it tends to be fine and encouraged, so long as it is obvious it’s not a direct copy. However, because the adopt is going to be sold, it is typically bad etiquette to copy creatively from someone else for your own monetary gain, especially since knowing color theory is a large part of designing.

You can always google some color palettes others have put together to use as well! Here are some more links = w=/)

http://paletton.com/ https://coolors.co/ http://colorpalettes.net/

-🍍