Little Lobita

Thanks for the memories!

growly — Fri, 17 Aug 2018 19:02:43 GMT

I don't use LJ anymore and I've honestly stopped reading my friends page at this point too. Pkmncollectors was the reason I used to visit LJ every few days but there's so much new Growlithe and Arcanine stuff coming out I don't feel the need to be a completionist collector anymore, I'd rather spend what little fun money I have on stuff like art commissions instead, support people that actually need it rather than a megacorp.

Anyway, my internet presence is scattered all over the internet, here's a masterpost of the various venues in which you can find me:
Public personal Twitter (cat pics, political retweets, my artwork, random musings and dissection of media): @RWallaceArt
Public business Twitter (my fursuits, my art that I do for others, very very few retweets and all furry-related): @LobitoWorks
Telegram: @denalidenalidenali
FurAffinity for my artwork: http://furaffinity.net/user/denalilobita/
FurAffinity for my fursuits: http://furaffinity.net/user/lobitaworks/
Fursuit Tumblr that I use in place of a website (no outside reblogs): http://lobitoworks.com
Artwork Tumblr (no outside reblogs): http://randallwallaceart.tumblr.com
Fursuit Instagram: lobitoworks
Artwork Instagram: darklydreamingdenali
Collecting/Personal Instagram: lobitaloot
Or if you're old school and want to email me, my personal chitchat email is randyyaps@gmail.com and my email for business inquiries is lobitoworks@gmail.com.

Peace!

Denali's Furry Origins! Much Fluff and Adventure Wow!

growly — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 02:18:51 GMT

The topic of people’s furry origins has been going around the fandom lately, so here is my furry story.

It was the mid 90’s- I was in early middle school, maybe around 10 or 11 years old. I don’t really know the exact year. My family was among the few who had internet, and I would use it to browse around kid’s sites and also search random things (I would say I googled it, but no, I used Lykos, HotBot, and other now-defunct search engines for many years before I would ever use Google!)

Popular topics for me to look up included The Lion King, Balto, wolves, and werewolves- all obsessions of mine at the time. It was a time where people actually had personal websites (no galleries or social media to update content on your behalf). I browsed hobbyist toy collectors pages, werewolf-themed webrings, and amateur artist’s websites.

It’s no wonder that my queries eventually lead me to the SCFA- the Squeaky Clean Furry Archive, which would later become Yerf. Yerf was one of the early furry art websites and over the years it became more carefully curated in content, to the point the BEST of the best were posting pro-level furry art here. To the extent where studio recruiters were supposedly keeping an eye on the talent. Yerf had a few rules, mostly: anthropomorphic animals only (the rules page had a handy definition of "anthropomorphic"), no fanart, no adult content. For an 11 year old kid it was the ideal site to see for my first exposure to furry. I always liked to draw before, but WOW I suddenly had a goal! I was going to be the youngest Yerf artist ever (spoiler: this didn't happen)! I applied shortly after I discovered the website- here’s the images I used, if you’re curious.

Anyway, as you can guess, the reviewers declined to accept me, but I think they probably could tell I was a little kid, I remember their rejection email not being too harsh, just telling me I should keep drawing. I applied over and over again through the years, basically as soon as my waiting period after a rejection was up, I applied again. I never did get accepted before the site ended up crashing permanently, which was really a shame since it had been such an intense dream of mine for so long.

Shortly after initially finding Yerf/SCFA in the mid-to-late-90’s, I created my fursona, Denali. Wish badly I had the original drawings of her. But this comic from 1999 is still pretty close to how she looked in the first drawings.

When I was old enough to interact with people online and the Yerf forums opened up, I started actively participating in the furry fandom. Around 2002 I opened up my Side7 and YNA galleries and got tons of helpful critique to guide me on my neverending artistic journey. For many years because of the kinds of sites I browsed, I thought furry was just a specific art subject matter people liked to draw, so I was confused for a while by people who don’t draw or write who considered themselves furries. I hadn’t quite grasped the breadth of what the fandom is. Over time, I got the idea though, and I started looking at fursuits.

In the early 2000’s, not many people owned or wanted fursuits. I remember talking to one of my online furry friends about wanting a fursuit, and her reaction was “…why?!” That pretty much summed it up how most of the fandom viewed fursuits (fun fact though, said friend now makes fursuits professionally too!) Fursuiters were kind of the oddballs of the fandom. Harmless but really weird. That didn’t deter me any of course, and I created my first fursuit in 2002 from a mishmash of poorly assembled storebought parts that I glued hand-painted fur to. It was impossible to see or breath, and when I took off my wig I almost threw it on a lit candle. :*)

I immediately wanted to make another that was better, so I made version 2.0 from scratch using the worst tutorials ever... I was basically just going off of verbal descriptions of what to do, the tutorial site's images were half broken. There really were very very few how-to guides out there, and most of the people creating these costumes just made one or two as a hobby and had to innovate literally everything from scratch. So there weren't any standard methods or anything back then, everybody did it differently, and lots of people used plastic mesh and metal wires and all kinds of kind of clunky materials. Ahh, back in the day!

One thing really did lead to another and I was hooked on building fursuits, it was so unlike any other art form I had ever done. My suits were absolutely terrible, ugly and poorly made at first, but of course practice, critique (thanks fursuit LJ!), and instruction really helped and they slowly got better. I wore my v 2.0 head to Dragon*Con, Anime Weekend Atlanta, and my first furry con, Furry Weekend Atlanta.

I was no newbie to cons, my parents had been taking me to Dragon*Con since I was a kid, so I was used to the hustle and bustle. Actually what surprised me about my first FWA (2005) was how dang TINY it was! It took place at an airport area hotel and I had to bring a notarized letter of permission from my dad to attend because I was still 17. Seeing fursuits for the first time (ones I didn't make that is) was so surreal! I believe the very first one I saw was Banshee Husky. Then rounding the corner was all these other fursuiters I knew from online too! I started naming them all out loud, excitedly. My people! I had arrived! I got to fursuit a couple of times in Denali and in my Growlithe fursuit. I met Tilt Longtail, who helped me feel at home at the con even though it was his first time too. I ended up almost getting a migraine when I went home that night though, my masks were designed to have a closed mouth, so I was breathing in my own used air for hours with no way to get fresh air. No good! However after some rest in the dark with a big mug of water I was okay. Here's a picture of me enjoying FWA 2005.

Twelve years later, I've been to 9 more FWAs, 3 Anthrocons, 1 MFF, 2 or 3 MFMs, one sketchy Elliott's party, and this year I plan to attend another FWA and my first Megaplex. I've built tons and tons more fursuits and now it's actually my sole form of employment! And recently my husband joined me working full time on these costumes too. The fandom's been really good to me!

I have times where I roll my eyes at the antics of those around me and swear the fandom's name, but mostly I am grateful to be here. I feel like furry people "get" me more than anyone, most of my closest friends are furries or at one point considered themselves furries. If it weren't for furry I have absolutely no idea what I'd be doing as a job at this point. I really really like working for furries. I've dabbled in doing freelance art outside the fandom and honestly, furries are the friendliest, most enthusiastic, and easiest to deal with clients out of anyone. And I feel like I can be myself here. If I think of myself as an anthropomorphic red wolf and draw myself as such, nobody bats an eye. I'm in good company! We're all pretty weird and our weirdness is what makes us cool. Whether you're an artist, a roleplayer, a fursuiter, an art collector, a writer, photographer, dancer, plush lover, fur afficianado, you're welcome in our ranks. There are no hard and fast rules in furry except an appreciation for anthropomorphics and an implied involvement in the community. I hope Zootopia does bring in new furries! I hope other fun weirdoes find support and excitement here. :)

Embroidery Machine

growly — Sat, 09 Nov 2013 22:33:27 GMT

I've asked this on Twitter just now, but I figure I'll ask here too, since I know I have a lot of plushmakers on my list- what are your recommendations for embroidery machines that are suitable for work on minky and short fur? Thinking of finally taking the plunge and investing in one, the deciding factor for me was making plans to sell at the MLP Fair- no way I'm machine sewing some of those crazy cutie marks. ;P Haha.

Sundae is Born

growly — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 20:58:00 GMT

So last December during one of the seemingly many dogsitting weeks, I designed this fella.

He's a dessert-themed doggie, with biscuit body, piroette tail, milano toes, banana snout, cherry nose, whipped cream hair, and a hot fudge back. I must have had the serious munchies or something when I created him. ;)
The idea was that he was a chihuahua, and I wanted to play around with facial asymmetry (forever envious of how the Laika character design team pulls this off). I had no idea as to his personality or anything, he was just a stand-alone design for a while.

Summer rolled around and I was thinking, "Man, I should really do something with all these random characters I keep designing... who is this guy??" I got a ruled notebook so I could practice coming up with a creative idea a day, and on the first page, I started coming up with the barest bones of a backstory for him. And then I kept writing every day for a couple weeks, and this random drawing whim I had in December turned into this really big thing that now I know is going to wind up as a comic in the future.

Here's some sketches from August, when he was starting to really come alive in my drawings and deviate from the original drawing (for the better!)

I have some secret hopes for this project that I'm not going to get into here, but I'm completely sure I want to go through with this and it's really cool coming up with new ideas every day. Some happy accidents, some threads of story that end up meeting in really cool ways, lots of story revisions. I do feel somewhat lost in this, as I am just one person trying to define a whole universe, and I don't know how long I need to spend in preplanning before I can get to the "good stuff". It's maddening to think I probably won't be able to actually start the comic itself for another year as I work out the story but I sure hope it's worth it and people enjoy reading it and I'm happy with it and it looks good.

A huge hurdle has been the art style... I just plain cannot do it all in real media, for issues of money and working space... my digital work is crap (and you don't have to be nice and tell me otherwise, I know it's really weak and accept the challenge). The style people have most responded to is my lineless vector style, but vector work on that scale is... tiring to say the least. ^_^; But I don't think my freehand lines are clean enough... dunno. Also it's hard to decide how simple is too simple. Working on a piece of concept art right now digitally, I'll finish it and then evaluate what about my working method needs to change. I hope you guys will be available for some concrit once that time comes.

aaa enough rambling, I'll slowly be uploading all this backlogged Sundae story stuff until you guys are caught up. I won't upload everything because of lolspoilers but enough to hopefully get you excited in the project. :D

...thanks for listening to me ramble!

Suitwork, Two foamed head

growly — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 01:55:30 GMT

WIP of a commission for a citra fullsuit. A citra is one of those made-up furry species, looks like a fox with a ringtail I guess?

Then I started this heavily stylized red fox head as a premade suit to get rid of extra fur. He's gonna be a fullsuit and it's gonna be awesome. Really excited and happy to make something different, I feel all passionate :D Too bad I ran out of blue foam, and my Wal*Mart is completely out. nnnnoooooooooooo

This is the concept art I had drawn up for it- so happy with how close the sculpt is to the ref! I hope to have this suit up for sale in time for FC, or sooner.

Suitwork Update

growly — Thu, 24 Oct 2013 16:51:07 GMT

Finished a bodysuit for a citra character yesterday. Man, unpadded suits without any difficult markings are sooooo easy xD I had forgotten what that was like. Upside-down pile direction on the chest so it's fluffier, otherwise the sparkle fur area would look sunken in against the DF. Weird dye lot for the main color, but I like that it's not as obnoxiously bright as usual.

Art Post (new ref sheet)

growly — Sat, 19 Oct 2013 23:53:05 GMT

Finallllllly finished this new ref sheet for myself I started in March or something. What a pain in the ass digital flats is, took me a ridiculously long time D: But it was worth it in the end because I like it a lot and it *shouldn't* become outdated anytime soon, fingers crossed. That's part of the reason I haven't really gotten a lot of art done of her lately, in addition to just being less interested in getting commissions made. I'd just rather draw my ideas for my characters myself, I feel like the whole as-of-yet-unnamed Sundae project is refueling my creativity.

Finished Lazer Fursuit

growly — Wed, 16 Oct 2013 11:56:11 GMT

Full fursuit commission for Lazer!

This suit features hand-sewn spots, digitigrade legs, "use your own shoe" feet, hidden ear vents, and latex claws and pawpads. It's definitely one of the most involved projects we've ever created and it's really cool to see it all come together after all our hard work. :)

The model shown is not the owner.

BTW, I dunno if anyone who reads this is interested in suit commissions and isn't already watching me on FA, but we're having an "artistic freedom" sale in which I'm offering suits at base prices, with a fast turnaround: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/11825285/

SPOILER TALK pt 2

growly — Sat, 05 Oct 2013 03:24:49 GMT

I came up with this design for Mega Arcanine a little while back... I never dreamed this might actually be real. I wonder how real Mega Arcanine will look???

EDIT: Turns out it was a false rumor, ughhhhhhhh. ;____;

And now something different

growly — Sat, 05 Oct 2013 02:50:02 GMT

Sheldon's Sith training has begun. ;)

Hiram McDaniels for Mayor

growly — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 15:07:33 GMT

My entry in the Welcome to Night Vale t-shirt design contest. I wasn't chosen as a finalist, but that's fine! The ones they chose are really awesome. :D
I am glad to see that this became really popular on Tumblr though, it's just kind of nice to get e-kudos on things I'm proud of.

THIS IS HALLOWEEN (art post)

growly — Thu, 03 Oct 2013 17:38:57 GMT

I’ve decided that every October, Denali will turn into a Halloween monster. :D The black parts fade into shadow easily, and you can often hear her laughing evilly in the dark. She is an insatiable glutton for Halloween candy (just none of that loser candy, thanks) and likes to pop out at people and scare them. She can also be found haunting stores that sell special pumpkin-themed foods, stealing stock from the back and slipping away unnoticed. If you see this creature, beware and hope to mercy you don’t have a pumpkin Frappuccino in your hand.

Art Post

growly — Wed, 02 Oct 2013 15:04:32 GMT

I was working on this character in 2010 (doesn't feel that long ago, wow) but I never really went anywhere with her and I've really lost interest in having this style of anthro character, so I ended up auctioning her off through FA. Keneta ended up with a friend, which makes me really happy to see :D I can't wait to see what she does with this character!

Art Update

growly — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 15:09:42 GMT

Made a thing!

Late commission, the actual process only took about two days of work, but it just took me forever to actually begin. :/
Still not really happy with my patterning skills, but too proud to ask for help on specific areas. Ah well. I also have what feels like a million plush to go in the waiting list before I'm allowed to make original work, bummer.

This plush came out better than I expected it to, especially the painted stuff- never really tried to do shading on minky with paint. Customer loves it, so yay!

Really looking forward to taking on an artistic freedom project or two around the end of the year, but I don't dare start putting out feelers until Lazer's fullsuit is finished. If I book myself too far in advance I can psych myself out sometimes, and overall completion estimates can be incorrect because of small delays stacking up.

Back to work with me!

Oops, I have to have everything

growly — Sat, 03 Aug 2013 20:07:11 GMT

Heya, anyone know where I can buy the newest set of Pikachu Oops merch at a reasonable price? Including the candy tins >_

OPEN for ART COMMISSIONS :D

growly — Sat, 13 Jul 2013 20:10:50 GMT

I am unable to work on my regular commissions for a week or so due to a little family emergency... so to stay afloat in the meanwhile and stay productive, I'm opening up for commissions!

-All prices are in USD, I accept Paypal
-No trades please
-Anything goes (within my comfort levels), just ask if you're not sure if I can pull it off.

REF SHEETS: $20/fullbody view. No shipping, digital file only
Example: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/10823590/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/10455267/

HEAD-ONLY REF SHEETS: $10/view No shipping, digital file only
Example: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/10830271/

BUST BADGES: $35, real media, will be shipped ready-to-wear
Examples: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/10919105/

LISA FRANK BADGES: $20 for digital delivery only, $25 for a shipped, ready-to-wear copy
Examples: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/9910412/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/10310490/

SCRUFF BADGES: $13, real media, will be shipped ready-to-wear
Examples: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/9770075/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/9770039/

PONY TAG-A-LONG BUDDIES: $6.50, OC ponies only, will be reprinted for sale. Ships ready-to-wear.
Examples: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/9910661/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/10690121/

SKETCHES: $10/fullbody character, digital copy only
Examples: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/10775745/

Let me know if you're interested in anything, thanks! ^^

Our Cat is the Cutest Cat

growly — Sat, 13 Jul 2013 04:32:28 GMT

For those who requested it, KITTEN PICS/VIDEOS! :D

Vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goSuwDhzT4M&feature=youtu.be

Rabid Rabbit, from start to finish (Crossposted to LJ Fursuit)

growly — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 15:13:42 GMT

I'd like to share pics of a newly completed fullsuit we made. :)

This was an artistic freedom commission, my only guideline was "rabbit". I did some research on different rabbit colorations and I decided the English spot looked really cool. I looked through my fur stores and I had three really beautiful plush furs that went well together and had the same texture, so lots of sketching later, I came up with this as the character design. :D
Originally I wanted him to have black rabbit-like eyes, but unfortunately I never could get my hands on the right materials, so I went with my usual toon eyes.

The head foaming. I wanted the ears be able to wiggle a little back and forth without flopping over, so I made the base of each ear from stiff foam and the rest of the ear from soft foam, with a aluminum rod in each ear to help it stay upright. Looking back, I wish I'd added a layer of 1/4 foam to the cheeks- just a tiiiiny bit more padding to give it that plump domesticated rabbit look. But the leaner look works fine too.

Hands, the claws are cast latex.

The feet are my "use your own shoe" style, never did much like the idea of ruining a pair of shoes with glue. I made a short video demonstrating how they work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3CF3hmVFFU

The finished head. I'm happy with how cute it came out! Almost all of the headcover is handsewn because lol beaver fur x_x I just really wanted to avoid super visible seams. The whiskers are from Matrices' shop, and the teeth are closed cell foam dipped in Plasti-Dip, painted, and sealed.

Some closeup shots of the head. The nose is just faux suede sewn into the headcover, I relied on the thickness of the fur to make the nose look recessed.

Some model shots of the costume on my brother. It's not a perfect fit on him, it'll look better on the owner. :) Seeing it all together was really nice! I'm glad it worked out well.

Annnnd just for fun, a bonus video of him dancing around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMUHm_3hM9M

Feedback is always much appreciated. ^^ To see more of our work, check us out on FA, DA, or Tumblr, under the username "LobitaWorks".

Art Post

growly — Fri, 28 Jun 2013 01:18:48 GMT

Some recent ref sheets I did- always trying to figure out a way to expedite the process without a loss of quality. I think this is how all my ref sheets will be until I inevitably choose another method of working.

A friend's passing

growly — Tue, 25 Jun 2013 01:53:48 GMT

I also come with some sad news... I don't know how many of you knew her, but jtbeckett passed away last week. :( I'm so horribly sad thinking of her family she left behind, what a horrible thing to have to endure.

Thanks Roseann for being my friend, and also giving me the opportunity to work on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoWFJ690U6E
I am so grateful I got to know her, at least a little bit through LJ.

Art Post - Savannah Squirrel

growly — Tue, 25 Jun 2013 01:35:43 GMT

I have a lot of art and sewing projects to post, backlogged, but I think I'll post them one at a time, once or twice a day so it's not such a huge glut of stuff all at once. My ulterior motive with this is also to ensure that I actually have something to post every day, because I do want to do my part to keep this site active.

My mother's wanted a new piece from me forever (the last one I gave her was from 2002ish), so I agreed to make her something a year and a half ago. Slow me finally made her this two months ago. As another testament to my slowness on things that aren't sewing commissions, the sketch for this was something in my work in progress pile from 2009. :/
Watercolor, 11" x 14".

Art Update - Sewing Stuff

growly — Sun, 12 May 2013 15:53:26 GMT

Some various sewing projects from the last month.

Commissioned Fakémon plushie. I really like how this one came out :D It's a really well-thought out design in general, and the plush came together well. Has rotating arm joints, which is fun! Now that I know how to do them, it kind of seems easier to give everything with anthro shoulders these rotating joints.

I hate making feet, so I spent like three days foaming this huge batch of them. Now I won't have to make any more for at least a little while.

Some cool commissioned stripey paws for a customer. These became kind of popular on Tumblr!

Some simple but cute panda ears.

A jumbo pony commission, this came together nicely too. I am glad it is that large, as if it were any smaller, I would have had no idea how to do the cutey mark. As it is, it was a little hard to see what I was doing under the zigzag foot. I really would like to explore MLP plush more, do some different stuff from what all other ten thousand pony artists are doing. It is hard to be original though!

A set of commissioned gloves and sleeves. I was asked to match DF aqua as exactly as I could on the pawpads- I actually really like doing that kind of color mixing. These are pretty darn close to my swatch of aqua I have.

A soft and swingy cat tail for Toz.

Gray Fox on Etsy

growly — Sun, 05 May 2013 14:27:56 GMT

Gray fox is now available for straight sale on Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/listing/150329147/gray-fox-partial-fursuit

I ♥ Toy Collecting

growly — Thu, 02 May 2013 17:14:18 GMT

I wanna post something random I love, once a day! I use the internet to complain and vent a lot, but it's also important to talk about things that are awesome. :D

I love toy collecting!
It's a way to show my appreciation of appealing character designs, and it makes me smile to see my Growlithe, plushie, and Luna armies! Toy collecting has made me many friends in all parts of the world. I am really shy to let people in to my life, collecting gives us some common ground to talk about! I love to help and cheer on other collectors, even people that collect the same stuff as I do.
The thrill of the hunt is also really exciting! Unearthing epic things on eBay and Y!J, finding rare things in thrift stores, late night bidwars, I love all of it. The only things left to get in my Pokémon collection are the really rare things, so new "gets" are only once in a while... but when they do come along it's usually pretty exciting!

I'm currently bidding on something that's been on my wants list for about five years now, and I've laid claim on two other small items, which is cool! And with lots of new amazing pony stuff coming out this year, it's going to be an eventful year for my collection, I think!

iPod for Sale

growly — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 17:21:14 GMT

I have a 4th gen iPod nano for sale, 8 GB. Comes with a silicone shock-resistant case and the original charging cord. Works great, I got an upgrade a while back and don't need this one.

$42 + shipping, obo
Paypal only, please.
Thanks!