The idea for this "how I found furry" page came about after reading similar pages by Loganberry ("Joyful To The Heavens Cry") and Entei-rah ("My Story") I can't promise that what is written here will be of any interest to anyone, but I'm going to write it anyway, and if you find yourself yawning to the extent that your jaw locks in place, then with the greatest respect maybe you should be reading something else. ;) Okay? Onwards!

My earliest "furry" memory, which Lightning inadvertently reminded me of a while back, was when I was about 5. Me and my brother used to play a silly little game where we were both werewolves. Quite what a 5 year old kid would know about werewolves is anyones guess! Except that my brother decided he was a werewolf who only ate sugarcubes, and I was a vegetarian wolf. I can only guess as to exactly what the heck these wolves got up to. :P After this slightly bizarre start, I think the next "furry" goings on wasn't until I was about 9, when I started drawing dozens of strange little comic books chronicling the adventures of a planet full of anthro dogs. They defended their planet from an ever-increasing number of alien invaders, and their leader was an extremely powerful dog who had magical powers. And by criminy they were even in full felt-tip technicolour! I constructed an entire world, technology and cities for these comic books - not bad for a 9 year old. ;) I had those books up until only a few years ago but somehow they got destroyed and chucked away. Its a shame, and I really miss them, silly as they were. The basic premise was sound enough (even if the plot and art were NOT) and even now I think it would make quite an interesting little computer game. :)

Aside from an ever increasing obsession... ummmm, interest, in cats, nothing else much happened till I got to college studying computer programming. Circa 1990, someone brought in an Amiga 500 computer which totally captured my imagination. Whereas PCs at that time just bleeped and could barely handle 16 colour displays, this A500 was chucking 64 colours or more round the screen at high speed and blasting out 4 channel digital sound. At the time it was stunning. On that basis, I started buying the Amiga Format magazine to find out more, and that led to the discovery of the furry art by one Eric Schwartz. Once I finally got my paws on a shiny new Amiga 1200 computer in 1994, I made very sure that I grabbed as many pictures and animations by Mr. Schwartz as possible. That in turn fired my enthusiasm for drawing my own furry art, but the attempts back then were frighteningly bad and I soon gave up.

1996 and 1997 were very important years for me as far as furry goes. I began buying the Previews catalogue which, every month, lists all the comics and books and related hoohaws that are going to be released. I found among the many unwieldy pages, a review of Omaha The Cat Dancer, and was intrigued. A few months after, during a routine visit to a Birmingham comic fair, I found 3 issues of this very comic and grabbed them. At that time I didn't actually realise they were adult comics. *Ahem* I guess the words "adults only" stuck on each cover should have been a bit of a clue... ;) But anyway, that also gave me lots of inspiration since the story was NOT about superheroes, etc, but about normal everyday life.

I went back to college to do an art course, and used their incredibly slow (at the time) internet connection to discover that there were many many more furry artists, comics etc around than I ever imagined. So that was when I first started making plans and notes for my own snowkitten story, although they were all very vague notes at that time. I also had a dream in 1997 which gave me the names Eliki and Leana, and I loved those names so I instantly gave them to my 2 main characters. At that time Eliki was to be a female character, but things soon changed and I decided Eliki would be male, and Leana would be his twin sister. A decision that has stuck to this day. :)

Also in 1997, I discovered a wonderful comic shop (after reading about it in an extremely cool English comic called Strangehaven) called Page45, located in Nottingham. They specialised in a very good mail order service and also in tracking down obscure back issues of comics. It was through them that I was able to get my paws on lots of Shanda The Panda and Katmandu comics, as well as the extremely inspiring 4 volumes of "The American Journal Of Anthropomorphics" and Havoc Inc. An advert in Havoc Inc eventually led me to the Genus Spotlight: Skunkworks comics which was just as inspiring in terms of art, but I'm saying no more than that. ;)

Apart from making heaps more story notes, developing on a world and town in which the characters lived, and more dismal but determined attempts at furry art, nothing much else happened till late 2000. By then I had started using the Eliki name in my signature when signing furry art, and I had sent out a picture of Leana on a Christmas card at the end of 1999, which was the first time anyone else outside immediate family had seen my work. But by the end of 2000, it seemed that there were no furry artists outside of America, so I started using the net to look for information about UK furry artists. Somehow I stumbled across a site belonging to Silvermane Liger, whose intro page invited anyone that found his site to introduce themselves and let him know they existed. So I did. My first contact with a UK Fur! :D

He suggested I should join the UKFur mailing list, and with a bit more purrsuasion he convinced me to introduce myself on there. Which I finally did using the name Eliki online for the first time ever, on January 21st 2001. The problem then as now is that I didn't have net access at home, so the only way I could get the replies was next day at the library. To say it was nerve wracking when I spotted the handful of replies in my inbox is an understatement. But of course, any worries were unfounded, because it turned out that the furs who replied (via the mailing list and purrsonal emails) were extremely friendly and welcoming, and of those initial replies, I am still friends with at least 2 of those people.

It was those 2 friends who, when a long term relationship collapsed (all together now, aaaaaaw) convinced me to make a website to show my furry art (which was finally starting to improve). They decided it would take my mind off things, which it certainly did. The site took a lot of time and effort, but I was really pleased with the end results. Announcing it through UKFur and the newly established Midfurs, was pretty nerve wracking - it was the first time that a load of facts about me, as well as my furry art, were being put somewhere that anybody could see it. But I am very glad I worked up the courage to do so, since I met several more furs that way who again, I still write to today.

The discovery of LJ later in 2001, and the website itself, as well as furs introducing other furs - all of this led to me making some more furry friends over the years. Again, many of these friends are people I still write to today, and without wishing to sound bigheaded, encouragement from these friends and people who signed my guestbook, has all helped to improve my furry art no end.

However, the most important thing to come out of all this is the friendships. This phrase gets used a lot in furry, but I really did feel that I had found somewhere I truly belonged, once I started sending those emails in 2001. Sure, I had made friends with people before that, and in at least a few cases they are still extremely close friends, but I could count those people on the fingers of one paw. Now though, I have more friends - true friends in every sense of the word - than I could ever have imagined, and I never forget just how much it means, how important that is, and how much I appreciate it. The encouragement and support during some of the bad times, as well as the good, has been simply incredible, and the sense of belonging and welcoming equally so. In addition to that, having the chance to roleplay through those emails and on LJ has meant so much and has made me feel a lot closer to my characters and to furry. Really, the best thing I can say here is a huge thank you to all those friends. You all mean the world to me.

To bring things up to date, I need to mention that at the end of 2005 I finally managed to make a start on my snowkitten story. Also, Russet and Cybernet3000 have been writing their own stories (near the bottom of the page) based around the snowkittens, as well as several other furs, and they are set in the snowkittens home country and town. That has been a huge inspiration for me to get the heck on with my own story, and it has also made the entire snowkitten world seem more alive and real than it ever did before. For that, I am extremely grateful. I am also hoping one day, when things settle down, to work on an online comic strip based around the snowkittens (and a few other characters) as kids, having seen so many furry cartoons online. As before, the encouragement with this new project from my furry friends is greatly appreciated, as are the offers of help. :)

And that as they say, is that. I just hope it didn't bore you too much! :)