For a while, I had been planning to draw myself in another new form, to accompany my Charmander and Shadox forms. Here I am, in my bandicoot form! Complete with my shorts and some teal colored fur~ ^w^

Actually, originally, I had 2 new forms planned out. A tanuki form and a bandicoot form. Having grown up half Japanese on my mom's side, I grew up with plenty of tanuki in my life, and I loved them. I also grew up with the Studio Ghibli film, "Pom Poko" which I also loved. But when I got around to drawing both of these forms, they came out rather generic looking IMO. So I decided to have my bandicoot form absorb some of my tanuki qualities. Like the big fat belly, and possibly some other features~ ;3 The bandicoot form came out on top, since I grew up with the Crash Bandicoot video games. And Crash was pretty much my hero. So bandicoots meant a ton to me.


The creation of my bandicoot form actually derides from a certain bit of history about myself:

Growing up, I was seen as a pretty weird kid in school. I was half Japanese and half American, and I had the tendency to "speak weird", due to my mixing up of my Japanese and English languages. On top of that, being big into nerdy things like video games or Japanese tokusatsu superhero programs. The other kids were often much more into adult related entertainment (like movies, or video games like GoldenEye and Halo). Sure, they had their brief Pokémon and N64 phases, but that hardly lasted even a year. I grew up with a PlayStation, despite also wanting an N64. I played games like Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon. And I was frequently left out, because my interests were in a whole another world from the other kids.

I had a great childhood, despite all that. But psychologically, this affected me tremendously, well into my adult years. Cause throughout middle and high school, I was still into geeky things, whereas the other kids had more "grown up." Sure, I had friends. But my friends were never too into the things which I enjoyed. They far preferred it when I was doing things which they enjoyed instead. And I always loved doing things for others. I loved being there for others and helping people feel happy. But because of all this, I felt kinda jipped throughout the years. And I admit, deep inside me, I had moments where I secretly wished I could somehow convert everyone to my ways. To show everyone my own unique world and happiness. To show that I myself was relevant and that people wanted to venture into my world with me. And I got pretty frustrated when it seemed like I had no control over others in this regard. Yeah... I got a bit screwy in the head right there. ^^;

My adult years I feel so far has been a time of healing for me. My college years, as well as my post-College years. I met plenty of new wonderful people who could surprisingly speak my nerdy "language!" Even joining FurAffinity helped me learn more about myself. I went through many experiences. Learning my strengths and weaknesses. And how I could improve myself and get stronger as an individual. I had moments where I vented to my college roommate about silly things like "Why doesn't anyone else like Crash Bandicoot like I do?? It's not fair!" The truth is though, I did genuinely feel alone in my world. As stupid as the subject matter was, lol.

But as I grew up and matured, and grew to learn and understand different people more, I eventually knew that the problem wasn't in other people or the world itself, but in myself. I needed to strengthen up and let things go. It wasn't easy. It was a big struggle. But I grew to accept and respect where others came from and how their mindsets worked. I learned to compromise in many ways around different people. I let the bandicoot inside of me go, so that I could better my social skills with everyone.

However, letting the bandicoot inside me go was no easy task. While it was certainly for my well being, I felt like I was betraying myself. Betraying my childhood. Betraying the very person I grew up happily as. All my life, I grew up with the happy ideals, created from being a big nerd, particularly from loving Crash Bandicoot himself. How could I just throw all that away?

All this happened shortly before I had truly opened up here on FurAffinity. And I figured out that the solution to making peace with my old bandicoot self... was to breath brand new life into it, and create a Sona out of it. With this new bandicoot form of mine, I have now moved on. I have grown and matured. But without turning my back on the last 15 years of what made me what I am. And that, is what my new Bandicoot form represents, and where it came from.~ ^___^