Gonna try this out for a while. Didn't bother redoing the ref sheet too much since it wasn't bad to begin with, but I added new details and redid some of the outfits I didn't like. Also added the maternity outfit since in 2018 that's probably what most of my drawings will be like :B

I was already happy with her markings, I just wanted to try something different to make her more unique but also match me a bit better. I still love Silvie's rusty coloration but I feel like, while I looooove the maned wolf, it doesn't suit me much anymore. I'm not super tall and not much of a loner since I have a family, and most of my design preferences are more European middle ages or celtic than South American. Also, I feel like maned wolves are popular enough nowadays that I don't have to worry about representing the underdog. Though I will always love my maney brothers and sisters <3<3

Silvie has always been mistaken for a fox anyway, and  Robert_Varulfur always begged me to give her a fluffier and longer tail, so I thought I might go that way... but everyone and their sister are foxes in the furry fandom, and I wanted her to be recognizably different.

Initially I thought I'd do a kitsune, but when I thought about it, I decided I'd feel kind of weird not being Japanese and having a Japanese creature as my fursona. I don't mind folks who do it but I'd feel weird about it. I still loved the mythology angle... but what other fox mythological creatures are there? Not many that aren't simply walking/talking foxes or actual gods, which I wasn't really going for.

So, I took some mythology for other critters and adapted it. And thus, the fox sidhe (sionnach sidhe) was created, and it suits me perfectly!

I looooove Irish and Scottish mythology and always loved the cat sidhe, so I figured it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to make a fox sidhe. In mythology, cat sidhthe were huge black cats with a white marking on their chests who had all kinds of nefarious fae magic, like stealing souls. They also would bless houses who left out milk for the cats on Samhain night. They were sometimes thought to be witches taking the form of cats.

While I didn't make Silvie pure black, I figured greyscaling her patterns would lend to the mythology and the magic would go the rest of the way. Eventually I might change her pattern so her whole belly isn't white and just her chest is, but I wasn't crazy about it in my initial sketches, so I left it for now.

I might go through and change the coloration in some of my recent drawings, just to try it out. I might upload them all to my scraps so I don't spam everyone since there won't be any visual differences other than her color/patterns.