FOOTNOTE: On the subject of the 2024 Ref sheet

Hello everyone! Welcome to the first ever footnote. This is a new series where I'll be giving more details on the projects I make, such as my thoughts, ideas, inspirations and what happens behind the scenes. I've always wanted to talk in depth about my work, but I always worry that people aren't interested. This new feature will allow me to showcase my development processes without worrying about annoying those who aren't interested. This is mainly for me to document my work, but I hope being able to talk about it without keeping it trapped in my head will mean other people gain something out of my yapping.

Every major project I will make from now on will have a footnote attached. Some will be long and some will be short. They can take the form of videos, comics, audio files or most likely text files like this one. Some of them will be easy to find, others will be hidden well. Regardless, I hope these footnotes inspire you in some way and I hope you enjoy the following footnote.

Two years of my ref sheet was coming up soon, and I wanted to change it. I've been meaning to change Amalga for over a year now. I tried many different things. Tried a completely new fursona, two fursonas, everything. I felt like I couldn't fit into Amalga no matter how much I tried. I didn't belong as him.

I had a few problems with my old ref sheet. A lot of the information, especially lore was inaccurate. It was quite large and artists would only use a small proportion of the full sheet. A lot of the information felt unnecessary anyway. My goal was to simplify my ref sheet and condense everything.

I've also tried to let Amalga be his own thing. He's still my sona, but he is his own character that is completely different from me and that's OK. I've desexualized him as I don't want this out of Amalga and as people have started drawn him in cute ways, I've started to realize that's what I actually prefer more. I want that to define Amalga. I don't want to be Amalga's personality to be condensed to being a hedonist. I'm setting Amalga free if that makes sense.

A quick note on femininity: Amalga used to occupy this one mindset of femininity of being seen as sexually attractive. I designed him to be the type of guy people would lust after. But the longer I think about it, I've sorted fallen in love for this second idea of femininity, one of being cute or aesthetically pleasing. Cute in the way a dog is seen as cute. I want him to be fem for himself, not for other people.

So I've created rules to keep Amalga safe. I feel like I'm destroying him otherwise. I have to protect him or else he'll mean nothing. Does that make any sense?

It probably doesn't. But I think I'll be making stuff in the coming year that explains this better.