# The Anatomy of a Good Fursona Profile



## TheRealKingKoopa (Apr 13, 2017)

I talked a little bit about interesting fursona designs in a previous thread, and while a lot of people have interesting designs, the accompanying profiles often end up having quite a bit less effort put into them.

The first thing you need for a character sheet is the sheet itself, and as it happens, we have one stickied at the top of this board. So let's take a look at it:

Name:
Age:
Sex:
Species:
Height:
Weight:​
Basic information, stuff that all character sheets have. Let's not worry about this (although personally I would change "sex" to "gender" to work better with transgender/nonbinary characters and still be technically correct, but that's just me being pedantic).

Appearance:
- Hair and fur:
- Markings:
- Eye color:
- Other features:​
Now here's where we start running into problems! Including such limited options and stuffing the rest into "other" results in a lot of generic, cookie-cutter descriptions - fur has this color, has these markings in this other color, has this color eyes, and has a few miscellaneous details (usually in the form of accessories).

Behavior and Personality:​
This is necessary in _every_ character profile, but it's often used wrong. I'll talk about this later.

Skills:
Weaknesses:​
This actually doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It works in a Sonic the Hedgehog style universe where the characters all have a gimmick or two that sets them apart, but I don't think it really works in the greater world of the furry fandom.

Likes:
Dislikes:​
Dislikes: Character sheets with "likes" and "dislikes" on them. It's a pet peeve of mine. I would ditch it and mention this kind of stuff in Personality, but I'll talk more about it later.

History:​
Another necessary field. Fill this out to a good level of detail.

The stickied profile has a lot of optional stuff below this point, and to me they don't seem to really be the sort of stuff that says a lot about the character (except for orientation which, for some reason, is at the very bottom of the sheet; it seems like it'd be important given we have so many LGBT folks).

Now, don't get me wrong: *I'm not doing this to critique the stickied sheet.* You can make a good character profile out of it. But it's important to take a good look at the sheet you're using and adjust it to better fit the relevant information about your character. If you're making a character with superpowers or something, then yeah, it's useful to use the "skills/weaknesses" bit (or just stick a new section in there called "power" or something), but if your character is good at video games and playing guitar, it might not be necessary.

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So how about how to fill in one of these without falling into Generic City? Well, let's look at it piece by piece.

*-- APPEARANCE --*

Personally, I like to do it in the form of a paragraph, e.g.:

A kobold with tan scales, a white chin & belly and black claws, clocking in at 2'7". She's slim at the waist but muscular at her arms, thighs and legs. Battle scars mark up her arms from her refusal to wear sleeves even in combat. Two stubby horns come from her head, right above her bright red eyes. She wears an old set of leather armor, crudely taken in to fit a kobold, with a tattered pair of shorts. Two mismatched swords are sheathed on her hips, and two daggers are concealed within her armor.​
Right there we have a paragraph that pretty concisely tells us everything we need to know about the character (and yes, she is my D&D character). It also incorporates the "height" part and makes the "weight" part redundant by talking about body type instead, but most importantly, *I came up with this description in a very freeform way.* I didn't think about it like "this color, these markings, these eyes, etc.;" instead, I took a mental picture of the character and just wrote about what I saw.

Oh, and here's the same thing in a similar format to the sticky sheet:

Name: Minika
Age: 12 _(that's adult age for a kobold by the way, she isn't a kid)_
Sex: Female
Species: Kobold
Height: 2'7"
Weight: 26 lbs
Scales: Tan
Markings: White chin & belly, black claws
Eye color: Red
Other features: Two stubby horns just above her eye sockets; a few battle scars on arms; wears old leather armor crudely taken in to fit a kobold; tattered shorts, staunchly refusing to wear anything with sleeves; two mismatched swords sheathed at her hips, two daggers concealed in her armor​
In one way, it is more organized, but in another, I had to stuff a lot of the detail into "Other Features," and I didn't even get to talk about what her body looks like in a general sense! Moral of the story: *Pick the right sheet for your character and consider tailoring it to your needs.* Here's a repository of them on the NaNoWriMo Forums.

*-- PERSONALITY --*

Writing down a character's personality is where things usually start to go wrong in these character profiles, and while it isn't make-or-break for me (I'm more interested in their actual appearance), it's the dividing line between "meh, cool design I guess" and "this is really interesting." So if you want to make your character sound like an interesting person, one tip is *don't just make a list of character traits.* It's all very clinical and doesn't give me a good feel for the character. Instead, give some description! Do it in paragraph format!

Example with my D&D character from earlier:

Minika has a problem with authority. Coming into adolescence, she was picked up by a kobold pirate crew and immediately started butting heads with the people in charge. Loud and brash, there's nothing that she wants more than glory -- to make a name for herself one way or another -- and she has no problems burning bridges to achieve this.
Of course, she has limits. She's not depraved; she won't kick anyone when they're down, so to speak, and although she has a somewhat twisted sense of fairness ("I won't complain if you do to me what I do to you"), she does make an effort to honor it. On top of that, she is aware of her own mortality, even if she denies it, and this can show if she is put in direct danger, suddenly turning back on her normal alpha-dog mannerisms.​
Once again, I'm just spewing out what I had in my head, and in such a way that can't really be expressed the same in a list of traits. I even managed to work in a little bit of backstory there!

Regarding listing likes and dislikes, well... I get that everybody has their own way of doing these things, and if you want to include it in your character profile, especially if you think it's relevant, sure, go ahead. Again, it's best to format the sheet itself to fit the necessary information about the character. Just make sure to avoid the *ABSOLUTE CARDINAL SIN* of character sheets: *UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU EVER LIST OBVIOUS THINGS LIKE "OBNOXIOUS PEOPLE" OR "PEOPLE WHO HURT OTHERS" UNDER DISLIKES.* Like... _EVERYBODY_ hates obnoxious people - it's in the very definition of the word - and only serial killers like to hurt other people for no reason!

Seriously, I cannot stress this enough: before you write something down, ask yourself "does this apply to _ABSOLUTELY EVERYBODY IN THE WORLD_?" and if your answer is yes, don't write it down. It's also important to note that you shouldn't write things like "kind" and "caring" in the Personality section, because that just makes the character look like a Mary-Sue.

*-- BACKSTORY --*

I don't actually have too much to say about this. Not a lot of people get it wrong. But I do have some tips:

- Again, write it out in paragraph format.
- If you have a giant, intricate world that this character is a part of, only include the directly relevant information. "Drafted into the army to fight against the Sergals" is obviously relevant. "The army overthrew the King in a coup" isn't relevant unless your character is the new king they put in his place.
- If your character is really mundane, at least write about _something_. Talk about their childhood, about their parents, how they did in high school, what kind of crowd they hung out with as a kid - anything to tell us how this person came to be who they are.

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Christ, this got a bit long again. Well, I hope somebody at least found this interesting or, god forbid, that I actually _helped_ someone write a bio for their fursona (or more likely frustrated them because the good way is a lot more work than the more common way).


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## Rant (Apr 13, 2017)

Sometimes it's better to interact with a fursona to learn about them.


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## Royn (Apr 13, 2017)

lol "Skills- Legion"  "Weaknesses- mortal"  Instant like of your 101.  Extremely helpful.  THANK you.  Very much.


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## TheRealKingKoopa (Apr 14, 2017)

Rant said:


> Sometimes it's better to interact with a fursona to learn about them.


That too, often in the form of character questionnaires, but I see those as more a thing for the avid writer/roleplayer who takes character creation really seriously rather than just a casual furry who wants to make an interesing fursona.


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## TheRealKingKoopa (Apr 15, 2017)

-AlphaLupi said:


> But if a character has something unique or different, it can certainly build character. For example, the dislike could be something as grand as disliking electricity, which would lead them to live a very isolated lifestyle. Or maybe something smaller, like disliking a popular music genre, that sets them apart.


I guess it's just a difference in personal taste. That's the sort of thing I would lump into the main personality description, and IMO listing likes and dislikes separate from that is only really necessary when doing the "list of personality traits" method.



-AlphaLupi said:


> Strengths and weaknesses also do help a lot when writing lore, and doesn't necessarily need to involve combat. For example, a character that is skilled at public speaking acting as a foil character to one that struggles with even the most basic social interaction.


Huh, I hadn't thought of that. Using strengths & weaknesses in relation to other characters. Hmm.


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