rustedtusks.com

Just as a general digression from another topic in Fan Art, I got to thinking about how many animal qualities remain for the sentient, anthropomorphic species of "Slop." Uthalla is clearly reprillian. Reptiles are cold-blooded. Cold-blooded creatures enter torpor when the temperature of their bodies drops in accordance with the environmental temperature. Is Uthy, and her kind, actually cold-blooded?

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"Y'know, if nothing else, living here has incredibly sharpened my 'Hey, there's someone coming for my dick!' defense skills." - JET

Yes. Yes she is.
She might tell you otherwise, but the heating pads in her vest tell me otherwise. Uthy has this issue with her own physiology. *grins*

that has to add to the horror when she 'mounts' a victim.

--lj

*blink* That must make the question of who is supposed to use what public toilet a rather complex issue since the differences between the sexes are not [BROKEN LINK] readily distinguishable [SEE BELOW] just by looking at the body. The more I think about it the more I realize that cross class dating is like picking up someone in a San Francisco night club - you never know what you're gonna' get. It does seem settled that female mammals do retain their swollen breasts year round; most females only have distinguishable breasts during the later stages of pregnancy and during the period immediately following birth to nurture the pups/cubs/kits/calves/lambs/kids/what-have-yous. As an observant man once said, "Its funny the bits we choose to mix and match when we create anthropomorphic characters."

EDIT: The broken link was supposed to go to a specific picture in Foxxfire's gallery. Take this link. lick on "Gallery," then "I'm there," then "Wuffies," select page "7," and then click on the thumbnail at the middle bottom titled "pity."

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"Y'know, if nothing else, living here has incredibly sharpened my 'Hey, there's someone coming for my dick!' defense skills." - JET

Just imagine during SLOP's age of segregation how difficult it was sorting out just who uses which bathroom?

It is fun for me to see how each artist chooses to interpret the word "anthropomorphic" as they create their animal/human hybrids..

While reading the posts associated with that picture that Andrick linked to, it struck me that, beyond the concept of "furry vs. anthro", which seems to indicate, to me, "cartoony vs. realistic" as opposed to "degree of natural animalism",...there is the not-so-simple choice (when deciding to go the realistic route instead of the cartoony way) of just how human they should be.. The word anthropomorphic (meaning "ascribing human form or attributes to a thing not human", or even "resembling or made to resemble a human form") is very vague as to the actual ratio of animal vs. human attributes, and the way those attributes manifest (ie. human hair-dos vs. animal hair, plantigrade vs. digitigrade, paws vs. feet/hands, amount of muzzle vs. human face,...etc,.. etc.....).

With SO much free room for interpretation (there is no "general" guide for "proper" anthropomorphization of animals,..nor should there be,..in my humble opinion) it's really enjoyable to observe the individual rules each author/artist makes up for their own fiction/style,..and further more, to get them to explain whatever logic (or aesthetic reasoning) they have conjured to set their own standards for their rules. For instance,..I choose NOT to give my anthropomorphic animals human hair-dos,..but I DO give them fully formed five-fingered hands (with claws and such, as appropriate), and five-toed feet (with claws as well, and sometimes a "slightly" different shape), and plantigrade (specifically human) legs. Muley chooses to do just the opposite, finding the human limbs and extremities going too far away from the natural animal characteristics for his taste, yet choosing to give his characters human-like head-hair treatment to some extent.

As far as I'm concerned,..this is ALL good,..and utterly dependent on people's individual tastes. But I'm often surprised by the amount of strong and vociferous opinion concerning what's "good" and "bad", or "right" and "wrong" with such choices. I've even heard,..personally witnessed,..fiery debate on the subject,...arguments and such.. The subject of "correctly rendered" secondary sexual characteristics has become a huge debate in and of itself (ie. sheath-vs. non-sheath, breasts or no-breasts, and "number of" rendered or described). I'm amazed that such powerful opinions are formed concerning something that seems to be so open-ended and free for interpretation...

Any thoughts?


Jadúgara ^_^

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"A man slips more with his tongue than with his feet..."

I'm quite fond of saying how the devil is in the details. Some of the design choices I make in SLOP are not an accident. Some are.

For example...in SLOP a lot of critters have something on top of their heads that's longer than the rest of their fur. They've got hair. Not everyone does, however.

Take a look at the bottom of this page... http://www.rustedtusks.com/slop/index.p ... 6&p=8&nc=1
Why do I have it absent on some characters? In part, hair is useful for telling characters of the same species apart. Its ALSO useful for quickly establishing gender. Not everyone has it. Some critters have just a bit of a head rough. This relates to the convergent biology of SLOP. Scientists in the SLOP universe refer to the sudden appearance of bipedalism and sentience among many different species as the Convergence. Some religions refer to it as the Hand of God. There's a cultivation of a hairstyle because it makes you less of an animal to that society. I haven't got to the story most relevant to this whole "distancing yourself" from your wild cousins thing yet, but trust me... Cultivating your animal side is sorta frowned upon.

Oh...I tend to draw human looking mammaries. Again, this is an artistic convenience. It quickly identifies gender. If you look at Muley naked, he's got quite a few nipples. The multi-mamarries exist in SLOP but the top most two are the most developped. There aren't a lot of litters anymore among most species though fraternal twins are quite common. Mulefoot's family even has a set of quintuplets in it. Thats more common among Vepr than other races.

This whole "anthro" versus "furry" thing sounds to me a bit like homophile verus homosexual or something equally strange. I don't care for lables. I draw what I draw.

From neck to navel, most furry artists draw a mostly human torso.
The ability to stretch our upper limbs out in opposite directions it mostly an 'ape' thing.
That whole 'ball and socket' shoulder is rarely found in other animals.
I guess that might be one reason why us apes were able to become intelligent.
The female ape has to have hips big enough, that can pass our wide shoulders, this made it possible to also pass larger heads through there also.
The whole 'brain size to body weight ratio' thing.
Any ways, I'm glad that a few in slop still like to get in touch with their animals sides.

http://www.rustedtusks.com/slop/index.p ... 4&p=5&nc=1

Ramseys

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Four legs good, two legs bad. (G. Orwell)

You know what would be really cool? If you put up short bits of info about each kind of species. I know there's some of that around like for the veprs and fel and whatnot. I'd be intrested to see much more species and animals. I am particularly curious about bats.

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"Sharp sword and empty horizon. Sometimes that's all a man needs... sometimes."

It would be fascinating to see something like that done!

And that brings to mind a quick question, concerning the SLOP denizens.. Earlier in the story we have seen a crow-based person, working at the rendering plant where Mulefoot dropped the corpses off. I seem to recall seeing it written somewhere (forum discussion, I think) that the crows were one of the few (if not the only) bird denizens of SLOP...

My question is, however....can they still fly? By the looks of the one at Smolik's,...who didn't seem to have very developed wings at all,...I'd assume they can't. Either that,..or his were "clipped" in some major way...

Jadúgara ^_^

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"A man slips more with his tongue than with his feet..."

About the Corvi...

Adults generally cannot fly. They don't have the wings for it. A long time ago a rare child of the right age could fly. There's the right balance of bodysize and strangely developed hands. Back in the "old nest" these children were quite revered. In the Federated Union, such a thing would be seen as childish fantasy. A great leader was whom could fly is foretold to one day return but the Temple of old has to be restored before their feathered leader can return and lead them all to the Sky.

Fossil records show that 100,000 years ago, they physically may have been able to fly. Some inventors are working on the right kind of ornothoptic prosthesis that would allow unhampered flight. While no one has yet been truly able to fly, there is a bit of an extreme sport where Corvi wear extensions to their winglike arms and jump out of planes--gliding for miles and miles.

Whatever brain structure that used to be optimized for flight isn't there anymore. The genes are inactive.

It's so sad, you have no more stripes. Anyways, on to the words you said.

Muley knows he's got this on the back burner.

It's commin'... jus' don't know when.

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"Y'know, if nothing else, living here has incredibly sharpened my 'Hey, there's someone coming for my dick!' defense skills." - JET

As our artist stated, "The devil is in the details" and I have to stand up on my soap box now and publicly congratulate him on having a unique perspective on "furry art." The "Fursons" as iit were are much more obviously animal, just with a bi-pedal form of motion and opposable thumbs to grasp, use tools with.

Most other artists have fur covered humans. Mulefoot has sentient animals.

Uncle.

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Emoticons are the wheelchair ramps for the humor impaired.

Heh,....I tend to fall into the category of "most other artists" I guess (fur-covered humans, as you say),.. since I did make the specific choice to utilize the chiefly human-shaped body archetype (including secondary sexual characteristics), with the addition of a purely animal head, tail, and more animal-like extremeties (claws, talons, thicker "hoof-like" fingernails, etc...). I did, however, decide to go with a more "realistic" approach (like Mulefoot),.with less cartoony influence.

But I thoroughly agree with you, Uncle,..and absolutely respect Mulefoot's chosen methods of rendering animal people, especially considering the particulars I'm able to gather from his fictional backdrop. Regardless of each of his particular choices (which I think are validated because of his artistic license), I appreciate his bold style especially because of the careful attention paid to his characters' anatomical realism, which I truly enjoy. Hopefully none of my earlier commentary made it seem like I was denegrating any of his choices. If it did, I'm truly sorry,..that was totally not my intent. The way I see it, we have each made our choices based on various fictional (and additionally, in my case, rules-convenience-related aspects) of our works... These choices are driven by our own needs and desires concerning our projects,..and are perfectly acceptable either way...

Jadúgara ^_^

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"A man slips more with his tongue than with his feet..."

Even though you don't change all the the physiolgy in a way I like, I still quite enjoy the very realistic way you render your art. I think the reason I don't like it when most people do that is that they lack the general realism even with the skin and face. The inability by some to render fur or scales is what I think deep down makes me and others see that art as humans in masks. There are very few naked land animals in this world aside from the naked ape. (And the naked mole rat, which would be the stuff of nightmares)

Looking at your art, your level of detail makes things quite alive. For that matter, why don't you post that happy gator here in some form so people can see you've GOT the skills. Its how I like to visualize my own gatorfolk.

Oh! Why,..thanks! Putting this image up was slightly more difficult than I had imagined (I had to create a deviantART account, since I had no other way to post it, that I could figure out)...

Here ya go!

Jadúgara ^_^

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"A man slips more with his tongue than with his feet..."

Say, isn't that Uthalla's dad?

Uncle

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Emoticons are the wheelchair ramps for the humor impaired.

Say, isn't that Uthalla's mom? That sorta' looks like a mumu under that apron. Ah, reptillian gender-ambiguity.

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"Y'know, if nothing else, living here has incredibly sharpened my 'Hey, there's someone coming for my dick!' defense skills." - JET

I don't care either way about this apron-wearer's cold blood relation to Uthy - it's a damn fine rendition. Great technique.

And that triangular... thingy on the apron front looks like David Hasselhoff's chest wig, so maybe it IS Uthy's dad after all.

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A lone figure sits still by a pool - he's been stamped human bacon by some butchering tool - he is you...
Social Security took care of this lad - we watch in reverence - as Narcissus is turned to a flower

Thanks Halbherz !!

And just let me say,..... "chest wig"....... <shudders>,...ooohh chilling...

Of course,..there's also the concept of a merkin.... Yeah,...one of the few places where I have seen the word "pudenda" used in a sentence...

Pudenda,.......Mmmnnn....roll THAT word around in your mouth for awhile...

Jadúgara ^_^

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"A man slips more with his tongue than with his feet..."

Very nice!

So, do we have a definition of "furry?" Anthropomorphic is so wide that it covers all the dishware and cutlery from "Beauty & the Beast" as well as Pinochio and Benji. I'm just curious.

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"Y'know, if nothing else, living here has incredibly sharpened my 'Hey, there's someone coming for my dick!' defense skills." - JET

A good question,..I'd say... Sadly,..I don't think we do,..unless it's so general and all-inclusive that many would call it too vague or resent that it's being applied to them or their work...

For instance,.. I'm not sure if I'm "technically" a furry or whether my art is actually "furry" art (there are as many types of furries, apparently, as there are shades of gray), but I do enjoy anthropomorphic art. If you were to say, "a furry is someone who appreciates anthropomorphic art, finds it cool (if it's done well), thinks the very concept of animal-people is an awesome one, not only because of its visual flair, but also because of its deep roots in myth and legend, and likes reading anthropomorphic fiction and such" (like the Spellsinger series, the Redwall stuff, etc.), then my answer would be "yes, I'm a furry because I like that type of stuff".

If you were to instead say "a furry is someone who likes to dress up in a fur-suit, goes to conventions where lots of others do the same, and engages in the somewhat humorous and entertaining fetishistic escapades that I have heard often occur nocturnally at such conventions and even in the privacy of their own home among other fur-suit enthusiasts", then I would have to say "no, I'm not a furry, because I don't participate in those particular activities"...

Likewise,..categorizing "furry" art is just as difficult and potentially broad-ranged (as well as highly debated)... I will say this,..there seems to be a vary large spectrum of "furries" around which I'm sure I, and my own brand of art, fits into somewhere. One end of the spectrum is boringly bland, composed of individuals who perhaps merely think animal-people are "cool" looking. The OTHER end of the spectrum can be almost frighteningly spicy, from what I've seen, and includes almost every deviation imaginable (some real, some utterly fictional) including especially freaky ones that are quite possibly illegal in some (if not all) states. Though I am, by no means, bland, I would say my interests fall on the blander and less "risqué" end of the "furry" spectrum.

Even a hard and fast definition is utterly debatable, since it always boils down to individual taste and opinion.

If I had to define "furry" art, in general,..I'd say:
"2-D or 3-D art whose subjects are primarily animals with human qualities, or humans with animal qualities, heavily weighed towards at least half-animal or more, rendered in a "cartoon-like" or "anime-like" fashion, especially that which is geared for the consumption of those who consider themselves part of the "furry" fandom or subculture."

Andrick,...how would you define it?

Jadúgara ^_^

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"A man slips more with his tongue than with his feet..."

By the way,..please pardon how verbose that last response was... It wasn't meant to be intimidating or anything,..it's just the way I write when I'm on a "thought roll". And I also noticed that I sorta' closed it off by asking only for Andrick's opinion about a possible definition...

Anyone else have two-cents they'd like to put in..? It's actually a pretty interesting question Andrick posed.. IS there a common definition for "furry" that would be accepted unilaterally by even the finite number of people that are on this forum? I'm betting most everyone would have slightly varying versions...

Jadúgara ^_^

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"A man slips more with his tongue than with his feet..."

Assigning human attributes and/or mannerisms to animals and vice versa, for characters meant to invoke empathy from an audience. The rabbits of "Watership Down" are just as "furry" as Sabrina from "Sabrina Online" and Peter from "Peter is the Wolf." "Kujo," however, is not a "furry" media despite the assignment of some human traits to the title animal.

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"Y'know, if nothing else, living here has incredibly sharpened my 'Hey, there's someone coming for my dick!' defense skills." - JET

Hmnn,..so the difference, in the case you mention,..is empathy? The Watership Down rabbits, Sabrina, and Peter would be considered "furry" by your definition,...but Cujo (I'm assuming you meant Cujo with a "C",..the Steven King dog character) is not "furry" because you don't (or perhaps are not intended to) empathize with him?

How about the main character from American Werewolf in London? The movie is set up so that the audience is meant to both be frightened by, AND empathize with, the main character and his plight. Would you consider this film, and/or perhaps the main character, to be "furry" media by using your definition? How about King Kong,...or Mighty Joe Young?

The rabbits,..Sabrina,. and Peter are all "cartoon-ized" characters,..while Cujo is a "real" dog in the film (I hesitate to say "realistic" considering the cheesy nature of the film ).. Do you think this, perhaps subconsciously, has someting to do with it? Some would say the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles should be considered "furry",..even in live movie format. And I would certainly consider them a furry movie offering before I would consider Mighty Joe Young furry,..and yet,..I'd bet most audiences had deeper feelings for Mighty Joe than they did for the Turtles... The Turtles did,..however, have their origins in comics, though.... Could that be a factor?

The only thing that breaks my theory,..though,..would be Watership Down,..since it originated as the book first before it became a cartoon. But,..then again,..when I first read the book (or saw the cartoon, for that matter),..I actually didn't think "furry" (even though they were heavily anthropomorphisized in their thoughts and communication, they were physically all rabbit). I actually saw the work as giving us the ability to see into the secret mind of rabbits while applying certain human sensibilities and emotions to them. Likewise with Martin Rosen's other work, the Plague Dogs,...which,..damn,..I must've bawled like BABY when I both read and SAW that!! It made Watership Down look like a walk in the park as far as empathy went.... I cried and cried for those poor dogs,..but I never thought of the book or movie as a furry one,..because beyond their evident emotions and communication with each other,..they were all dog....

I highly recommend the Plague Dogs, by the way.. Truly good,..but REALLY sad and depressing.... Be prepared to deal with unhappy endings...

Jadúgara ^_^

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"A man slips more with his tongue than with his feet..."

Funny, I was just talking about "Plague Dogs" in another forum just last week. Snitter!

"King Kong..." I'll have to look at those media sources again to be sure, but Kong was just a large, aggressive ape with a range of mental faculties and emotions that seem true to the actions and reasonings of apes. Willy, from "Free Willy" and Flipper are animals in animal shows with no evident anthropomorphization. The animals from "Homeward Bound," "the Cat from Outer Space," and "Benji" I would consider to be furry media. There is an assignment of human attributes to these characters that allow them to communicate, reason, and/or act differently from the base animals that cast them.

"Werewolf in London" is furry media because that empathy is required for the audience to feel the horror of a human descending into the uncontrollable mind-set of a murderous, mythical wolf-beast. The shark in "Jaws" was given the human disposition for being evil so that it represented a supernatural force of insatiable hunger, but nobody empathized with a peckish great white. The killer whale in "Orca" was given the attributes of incredible reasoning and a burning sense for revenge and, despite the set-up that the whalers killed its pregnant mate, there really was no sense of empathy for the animal; if anything really was swung that way in the film it was more of a sense of the whalers reaping what they've sown. Ein from "Cowboy Bebop" may be a Welsh Corgie but is arguably the smartest member of the crew despite having that intellect over-ridden by his endearingly canine actions - a furry character indeed.

I think much of what trips people up is using the label of furry in describing genres. Furry is not a genre. Furry is a device of characterization.

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"Y'know, if nothing else, living here has incredibly sharpened my 'Hey, there's someone coming for my dick!' defense skills." - JET

Awesome! A REALLY interesting take on a definition for "furry",..and one that I've never heard expressed before (at least concerning the empathy factor)! Allow me to expand upon it (and please pardon the length,..but I hope you guys find this interesting).

I totally agree that "furry" shouldn't be used to describe a genre since most would concur that being considered "furry" is based around the idea of animal characters with human characteristics, rather than any one particular type of fiction. Any title in any type of media can be considered "furry" simply by having an anthropomorphic animal character in it, and such characters are most often seen in cartoons, comics, science fiction, allegorical novels, commercials, video games, and animated films (part of this, by the way,..being quoted from Wikipedia).

So I'm assuming, by this, that you would describe Plague Dogs as furry media, like you have with Watership Down, regardless of their physical degree of anthropomorphization (sp?), simply because the level of "beyond the normal" behavioral and character-driven anthropomorphization was created to engender a "human-level" of empathy,..am I right?

So is your definition of "furry" as an empathy-driven device of characterization (as opposed to a genre) something that you have personally concluded and are attempting to shepherd,…or have you seen this as an accepted definition elsewhere that has just begun to catch on? Just curious.

Either way, that would definitely place "furry" as a specific subcategory of general anthropomorphization (which I really think it is). If so, it might read something like this.... "The furry subcategory, regardless of the genre or media, must include some type of non-human animal-life (whether partially zoomorphic or fully animal), whether actually possessing fur or not. Additionally, it would be further defined as having only to do with those animals or animal hybrids who possess enough human qualities (at the least exhibiting recognizable aspects of human intelligence, facial expressions, and/or the ability to speak) so that they may be empathized with on a more "human" level. This empathy can span the whole broad range of emotions, even horror,..but the key is that you must feel horror "for" them, not just "of" them. You must be capable of feeling for them as if you could imagine yourself being in their situation."

If this sums up your definition in greater detail,..then I can totally buy into it. Although there might still be areas where we would disagree merely on matters of opinion. For instance,..with King Kong (at least in the recent version) I felt that they added a really high degree of emotional and intellectual anthropomorphization to him that went well above and beyond what a normal gorilla (even a giant one or Koko) would exhibit, to such an extent that the viewer could easily feel his rage, his possessiveness, his bitter loneliness, his brief joy in the snowy park, and his anguish at the end, and was communicating all that very readily (and in many cases with some subtlety,..especially to the leading lady) in a way that could easily be empathized with. The same goes with Mighty Joe Young. If they hadn't,..then I, and many others I know,..wouldn't have cried during the film.

I'm sure there are those out there who would debate you concerning Flipper and Willy too, even if they also agreed with the general definition.

I would still totally agree with you, however, concerning Jaws, absolutely..... I mean,..yeah,..he's a tooth-filled death-tube with fins,..and no-one cares except to say "yay!" when he gets the shit blown out of him...

So,..if we can agree on the definition above, then,..the REAL question is,..would the actual authors of those works that we agreed were furry be willing to label their OWN works as such? Some,..maybe,..others,....probably not...

Does it matter if they do or don't,..or is it the general consensus of the consumer that decides (or perhaps each individual on their own terms,...i.e. "Its furry to me,..but it's not furry to you,..and we're both right")?

Back to you Muley (if you dare answer at this point )....... Would you agree with the definition (in green above)? Is SLOP furry as far as you're concerned?

<Tee Hee>

Jadúgara ^_^

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"A man slips more with his tongue than with his feet..."

I think part of the problem with this whole discussion hinges on the baggage carried by various words. Because so much furry/anthro art has gone off on a weird tangent in order to fulfill the very private worlds of those that imagine it...and the not so private sexual side...that some people are reluctant to use the word.

I like the notion that its a device and not a genre.

Is SLOP furry?

In terms of genre, I view slop as rural-gothic horror.
Devices have a purpose, don't they?
So what's the purpose of me having animal-folk instead of humans? Would this comic work if I drew stylized human beings? I'm not sure.

In a way, I'm using the symbolism we attach to animals in order to aid the story. However, the point of the device really boils down to my wanting to explore form and function. I want to explore how biology effects the behavior of individuals and groups. I'm playing with stereotypes and notions of inborn behavior in a way that would make people uncomfortable if I did it with human beings.

Stereotypes are generally frowned upon when you use them with people.
You're not allowed to say people behave a certain way based on their genetics. I can get away with it if my characters are completely different species.

I once read someone outside of normal furry-fandom explain the difference between furry and anthro as: If there's a good plot reason for the existance of the morph, its anthro. If there's no reason for the morphs to be morphs, or if you could replace them with people and not alter the story then its just furry. I'm sure furry was being used as a pejorative in the case of that description.

I'm not sure what to call SLOP. It is what it is.

I'm sure it was too. In fact,.. I'd hazzard a guess to say that as far as that person was concerned, anthro was "O.K. and merited",...while they saw furry as "disdainful and flippant". Plus,..I also take it that they didn't perceive furry as being a subset of anthropomorphic at all,..but as two different things. I'd bet that they wouldn't agree with our above definition either... Like you said,....too much baggage.



Good answer!


Jadúgara ^_^

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"A man slips more with his tongue than with his feet..."