Dogpatch Press

Continuing from Furry college clubs — a place for artists and animators with dreams and fears.

Fall Fest 2019

Yesterday’s article looked at college clubs for furries being a new movement in a growing fandom. It covered clubs at art and animation schools being a special place for people who haven’t always been in synch with the mainstream. It could involve stigma with jobs, but the upside is pro artists making good ties to fandom, and indie artists finding opportunity.

Georgia’s Savannah College of Art and Design is a top rated school near Furry Weekend Atlanta, and a place to find furry talent. SCADfurs is a club for them you can see on Furaffinity or Twitter. SCAD furs president Bucky is a Sequential Art major, and here’s our Q&A.

Can you tell me about the history of the SCAD furs club?

I’m currently the fourth of the presidents to run SCAD furs, behind our founder Chaz (@kinghime_ on twitter), Nick Pina (@stupidsnowfox on twitter), and Katy Mack (@h8nlof on twitter). We have this club here at SCAD to invite like minded furries, and sometimes non furries, to hang out and have fun with other people who have the same interests in the fandom with activities like game days, fandom history days, Art trade days, fursuit building days, and outings like FWA, Parades in Savannah, picnics, etc.

Who are some members to shout out?

We’re lucky to have a great amount of talented artists, fursuit makers and speakers who attend club who were willing to do presentations on different kinds of art forms. Some of the notable fursuit makers, who have created suits of their own are Harley (@harleyhyaena) Iceartz (@iceartz) DutchVali (@dutchvali) and splash (@atomic_splash)!

My VP Nathan, (@GetoutofZeWei) has also been such a fantastic and positive influence on the club, helping present and making sure people feel welcome!

@celestialshibe where they shouldn’t be

What are relations with the school like?

Thankfully, we haven’t had any negative relations! It’s always great to have students and sometimes faculty take an interest in the furries, as one of our professors helps us as a faculty advisor for the club. Every year, the school also holds an event called “fall fest” where student based clubs can set up and show off what they have to offer to new students arriving at SCAD. We, of course show up in fursuits if we have them :3

As well as school wide club events and planning, The SCAD inter club council takes care of what we can’t in regards to reserving a space for the club to meet, and allocating extra funds for club events should we request and need them.

How about relations with other students at the school?

As far as club itself goes, anyone who goes to SCAD and cares to join is welcome at any point! We sometimes have new people show up in the middle of a quarter when current members spread the word to friends or colleagues. As said before, Fall Fest is our best way to talk to and invite new members to the club each year, but it’s always fantastic to see new faces whenever!

What are the typical activities and what’s the coolest thing you ever did?

As mentioned before, we do a bunch of outings like walking around and meeting people at the annual Martin Luther King Day parade here in Savannah, we have our yearly commute up to Atlanta for Furry Weekend Atlanta, and other smaller more casual outings like picnics in the park to zoo trips!

Last year’s VP @coffeekoley at the MLK day parade 2019

Do you have any ideas about furries in the industry… like is it still a thing to keep quiet as much as years ago because of fandom image? Do you know of furries in the industry… and do you think there might be a “furry illuminati” that helps get jobs, like there is at tech corps in Silicon Valley?

Personally, I think being a furry is a fantastic way to get into the industry despite the negative image placed on us in the past. In my experience at SCAD, I’ve never seen more kind hearted, expressive, and creative people than I have here in the fur club, and I have no doubt that those are qualities that the industry looks for in a person, and no doubt that there are people currently in the industry that have started in a similar place.

Even now there are graduates and club attendees that are selling their work at cons, and working as freelance artists, which is as good a way as any to get your name out there, and make a bangin’ portfolio for any passing industries in the process!

As for a furry illuminati, I’m not sure about that one, but I don’t doubt that connections have their perks!

Favorite animation?

We always like to go back to the classic Disney movies like Robin Hood and The Lion King, to show off our “furry gateways” and how we started out in the fandom, but with newer movies featuring anthropomorphic characters and all of the fantastic content creators and animators on other platforms, we’re never short on inspiration.

Tell me a little about the courses and school and what art is coming out of it?

Most of the attendees of the club are either Sequential Art or Animation, and a lot of the professors teaching the courses in those fields allow us to do furry themed animation or comics for art projects. The courses provided here at the school range from the fundamentals of most of, if not all kinds of different art forms ranging from animation, figure drawing, comic art, storyboarding, game design, film, creative writing, and plenty, plenty more to count!

I’m sure other members could have a lot more to say about making art, what the club does, the fandom, and the industry stuff in the introduction article. Hope to hear more from them in comments. The club looks so fun and positive, thanks for doing this!

Group Fursuit photo 2019

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