Monkey Jonathan: A Post On Making New Fursonas

Hey there, Patrons and public. 

This post is about Monkey Jonathan (or MJ for short). To create this monkey ‘sona, I had to first go on a journey that included many other characters, in a very real way exploring my past as illustrated in character design. I hope in taking this journey with me you’ll feel better-equipped to enjoy your own fursonas, as well as helping others in designing more effective characters for themselves.

And if this writing makes you feel more connected or appreciative of Fursonas at large, please do me a favor and share this post with others. Thanks, and enjoy!

---

If you're reading this, you probably already know what a "fursona" is. If you don't, it's pretty easy to understand: A fursona is an animal character used to represent the owner/player of said character, normally within the furry fandom. 

Ideal, Paradigm, Avatar

These are the three kinds of non-mutually exclusive types in my fursona taxonomy. 

Ideal: The physical and psychological traits you find most attractive

Paradigm: An abstract idea you want to see embodied

Avatar: Getting as close to the IRL you as possible

Your fursona already relates to one of these traits…probably all three. In the character-select screen of your mind, these sliders can be turned up or down to anything you want. The important thing is knowing that these dimensions exist. With that understanding, you should be able to pinpoint what you want in a fursona more easily, from either your own art or a commissioned artist.

Every fursona I’ve had, placed on a Venn Diagram showing their IPA alignment

My fursonas are all across the board, but it wasn’t until plotting them on this graph that I realized something that should have been obvious: my younger self wanted Paradigms and Ideals, not Avatars. My younger self wanted to be represented as cool and exciting. He wanted to illustrate ideas, sure, and sometimes have characters that reflected his own tastes in clothing, but it said more about what he liked superficially rather than who he was or even what he wanted to be. Confidence in my own body and in my own ideas didn’t come until much later in life, so it makes sense that even my fursonas would follow suit. 

Finally, After consuming furry content for 17 years, I resolved to create a fursona to be as strongly on the Avatar alignment of the IPA as possible. My earlier characters were great for helping me be more vulnerable, then more confident, illustrating complex concepts I didn’t have exact words for. The most recent iteration of this character was not about attaining confidence, but rather sharing the confidence I already attained: first through my art and then through the community of the furry fandom.

Illustrating Lifestyle vs. Illustrating Prayer

Most people don’t know this about my black hare fursona, Resin, but there are actually two versions of him. One is an Avatar, and one is a Paradigm.

This Resin is a stand-in for my experiences. He dresses and behaves exactly as I do in these autobiographical comics from BEOKAY.

 As fun as it is to see a cartoon hare version of me in the comics, and as entertaining and validating as as it may be to receive silly doodles of Resin during my livestreams, I’d prefer to have my sketches and paintings of Resin designated as a meditative space for processing spiritual concepts.  

This Resin started as an soft ideal of physical fitness, but was mainly a paradigm for confidence, presence, and peace. Paintings of Resin focus on a rich inner-world of meditation and reflection, representing a facet of me but not necessarily representing literal human experiences. Also collected in BEOKAY.

I spend a lot of time thinking, exploring this rich inner world of mine, but what about my interactions with friends? What about my time at conventions, or camping, or cooking, drinking, doing art, or fucking? Do I get to share art of those things? 

What Is a Monkey?

I couldn’t quite imagine a monkey fursona at first. I assume the reason they’re not popular choices in the furry fandom is because they tend to be uncanny, as a species already so close in their appearance to human beings. I love monkeys for that reason, but I understand why people would see them and go, “Ugh, why would I pick smaller, hairier versions of how I look already when instead I could be something exotic like a fox?” Perhaps this kept me from taking monkeys more seriously.

One of my friends, an academic who spent the last three years being furry-adjacent before going full-on furry this year, was surprised that I didn’t choose a monkey for my fursona, especially a spider monkey. I fit the proportions for the species, he said. My yoga practice and constant stretching while idling also made it an easy choice for him.

But all my designs are simple, maybe even plain. My fursonas are already about having a closer tie to my physical dimensions. Why not just go for the spider monkey, I thought, and troubleshoot the uncanny parts of it as I move along? 

Spider Monkey photo (c) Neil Saunders

I was thinking about my relationship to monkeys. Aside from enjoying them at face value, both in the furry fandom and in pop culture, I was never too invested in them. I didn’t know much about their social behaviors. Latinx Furries seem to be the greatest concentration of primate fursonas, likely because of endemic proximity of those species. Choosing animals indigenous to regions I have no connection to felt kind of strange to me. Policing myself for this choice was also pretty strange to me.

Spider Monkey it is.

It took a few attempts on the face before finding something that looked attentive, expressive but intense, while having my proportions, all without feeling like he was going to stalk you from a dark corner of a horror film.

Per my usual workflow on Fursona commissions, I started with a face looking straight at me. I found establishing eye contact is a good way to tap into the personhood of a fursona before working on all the other traits. From there, the rest of the design wasn’t too difficult. For coloring and other specific traits, I chose to focus on a black handed spider monkey as the exact species.

Photo from a recent camping trip. As an Avatar fursona, I wanted his body to be 1:1 my anatomy IRL, along with the subject matters.

A healthy new lifestyle change for my 2019 has been monthly camping trips. Just being able to go out and camp, for the first time as an adult, in as little clothing as possible, has been liberating. Sasha had taken pictures of me during our last camping trip, with our intention of my using it for references. It was days later that I realized a new lifestyle change would be perfect inspiration for a new fursona image. 

I had a few nude photos from the camping trip that I could have also used, but I figured I’d save that for later. Any nude images of this character should be treated the same as I’d treat nudes of myself: I am not ashamed of being seen nude, (at least on my own terms) but I don’t want that kind of representation to be shared without any discrimination at all. Anything sexual would certainly follow suit, too. I wouldn't just throw photos of my sexual encounters out into the public. It would have to be a controlled and intentional expression.

Mid-drawing, I realized this character didn’t have a name. As my avatar, calling him anything other than “Jonathan” felt disingenuous. I opted for “Monkey Jonathan”, or MJ for short. Because that’s what he is. He is Jonathan as a monkey. I'm pleased to report after two weeks of hearing "MJ" that I only sometimes think of Michael Jackson.

I just... I don't like tails.

Because he is more Jonathan than monkey, I decided MJ would have no tail. I like this little rebellion in the design, taking a species known for its strong and prehensile tail, in a fandom that loves seeing tails on characters, and then removing it because I do not have a tail. Though livestream viewers gave me shit (not really, they simply inquired) about lobbing the tail off the moment they saw he had no tail, it still feels nice to be invested in this less common thing that sets my designs apart.

He also has human feet instead of monkey feet, because again, I hold zero interest in wondering how I would behave differently if my body features were different. In an 18+ groupchat for primate-centric furry art, I learned that this was a second unpopular design choice of mine! But I'm at peace about that. MJ’s purpose is to share my life with others, not to wonder how my life would be different if I were a monkey. If you assume my tastes are basically body painted people with animal masks, you assume correctly.

What is a Jonathan?

Concerning the inevitable character sheet, what character traits would I include? Because this character is me, I can’t help but feel like this is a page on a dating site. 

Gender: Male? 

Orientation: Pan?

Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico

Languages: Is this part pretentious? 

Interests: Ridiculous to think I could contain all that here

Dislikes: This

As far back as I can remember, I was the black sheep. I wasn't normally able to be who I wanted to be. Whether I was in a recovery group at a church, or in a fandom full of weirdos, I never cleanly fit into any one place, so I just made my own group based off of my priorities. I don't know how to summarize myself in a character sheet. That's why I stream, show up to conventions, and give talks. I can't expect honest representations to come from a single image of a monkey surrounded by keywords. Maybe the only way to truly draw MJ is to spend time with me, feeling who I am.

Along with my exact build, here's MJ wearing my underwear, my trucker hat, my beads, and featuring a freeze brand equivalent of my tattoos. 

Seriously. What is a Jonathan?

This segues into a final context behind MJ that I wanted to share. It relates to my previous Patreon posts, and my reference earlier to the differences between Resin and MJ. As my avatar, MJ is also an extension of my being polyamorous. I like throwing sexual energy out there, despite being in a committed closed relationship with Sasha. In some contexts, I still really like the idea of masturbating with guys. I like the confidence and empowerment it brings me. And this is complicated on multiple levels for my partner, who was dragged into poly status by my long-distance relationship almost two years ago. He can’t relate to these sexual experiences or desires of mine, and he can’t quite relate to the design of Monkey Jonathan.

Imagine how scary it must be, to love your partner so deeply, and then to hear him brashly demanding sexual freedoms while making a character that you can’t imagine interacting with. Sasha and I have put in a lot of time talking about the pains that come from our differences, continuing an open discussion about what we want our impending marriage to be, where compromising on either side is the most loving and secure thing to do. Sometimes I want freedoms outside of my partner, and even though MJ’s design is growing on him, it’s both sad and relieving to me that MJ is for me and not exactly for my partner. I don’t know what developments are waiting for us there, as a couple. If I had my way, I’d draw our characters together, with an edited version of Sasha’s fursona to be more avatar and less paradigm. I want sexual art of us together, and I want the sex we engage in to be a work of art.

And, of course, as that happens, you’ll probably see updates here. In the meanwhile, huge thanks to everyone who reached out to me during my last public post, breaking down why MJ served as my main artistic distraction. 

---

The references in this post to navigating my monogamous religious roots versus my current polyamorous status are expanded upon in my Black Hare tier of my Patreon. That's where I publish my more private and sexual pieces, all paired with artist statements, before putting them out into the world. It's my favourite tier on my Patreon and you should absolutely check it out. But any donation on my Patreon helps me do more work like this, so please offer what you can afford if these themes are important to you.

You can also download BEOKAY: The Dark Art of Self Therapy for examples of my trauma repurposed into writing and artwork making a positive difference in the world. And if you can't afford the price tag but could use the support, you're morally obligated to message me for a free download code.

Thanks for reading, my friends.

Love,

-J