By Fourth-year animation major Micheal Miranda made an observation in his art classes last year: he and his peers were “suspiciously good at drawing animals.”
“The fun thing about being a furry is that if you’re in an art major, it is very easy to tell who else is a furry because we all kind of draw the exact same,” Miranda said.
A furry is someone interested in anthropomorphic animals or animals with human characteristics. Many furries have “fursonas,” which are anthropomorphic animal representations of themselves. These mediums often intersect with furry art.
Third-year BFA pre-production major Sugi Sugihara draws sketches on the whiteboard in FA4-311. Sugihara wears the fursuit of Legoshi, a character from the anime “Beastars.” Photo credit: Julia Goldman
Seeing a similar art style among his peers, Miranda created a group chat with some of his friends from his animation class on the social media platform Discord.
According to Miranda, the Discord channel began to grow rapidly through word-of-mouth.
Although his Discord channel started as a community of friends combined into one, many members began asking Miranda when their meetings were, which sparked Miranda’s interest in creating the club.
He started an administration board and formed Furries At The Beach with Co-President Sugi Suggihara over the summer.
Among the 90% of undergraduate students commuting or living off campus, Miranda said he introduced the furry fandom to campus from a desire to create a community. Their primary focus, he said, is to be a social club.
Furries at the Beach has allowed Miranda to make new friends.
“I didn’t know Sugi until we started forming this club, and now we’re good friends… I was friends with Sarah, but we’re a lot closer now because of the club.”
Miranda, Sugihara, and pre-production major Sarah Donaldson hope to share their experience of making new friends from the club with everyone on campus.
“It’s given us opportunities to hang out and talk to people that we wouldn’t have had otherwise,” Miranda said. “I hope people can use the club as a way to make friends.”
Held in FA4-311, Furries at the Beach held their first meeting where each member introduced themselves, their major and “fursona” at the meeting. Photo Credit: Julia Goldman
The club plans to hold meetings where members can experiment with their creative ideas and create fursuits, with the club providing materials. Sugihara, a freelancer selling fursuits, will help with the creative workshops.
Sugihara said he specializes in creating the functionality of paws and fursuits, ensuring that each element can move realistically with the customer’s body.
For his work, Sugihara broke down the typical pricing.
“A head alone can run anywhere from $2,500 to $5,000 depending on intricacy,” Sugihara said. “I focus on paws, which I start at $350. Tails can be from $100 to $500; it really depends on what they want.”
Although Sugihara and some furries have their own fursuits, club members are not required to wear one.
“Most people don’t dress up,” Sugihara said. “About 20% of furries have a fursuit; they’re really expensive.”
Furries At The Beach plan to hold meetings every other week, the first of which was held on Sept. 26.
