Introducing Sepe
I seem to have a habit of creating a new character once every decade, and as I'm starting to get near the end of my 30s, I guess it was about time for another to make an appearance. So, here comes Sepe the German Shepherd. And above is his first proper appearance in form of a ref sheet wonderfully brought to life by Freddy.
So who is Sepe?
- A fluffy German Shepherd with a caramel-shaded coating (I literally used photos of caramel and fudge as colour references)
- Somewhere in his mid 30s-ish - he's aged well, just gotten stylishly scruffier over time.
- Relaxed, chill, contemplative (positive), doesn’t speak often but means what he says
- While not outwardly self-assured, he is quietly self-confident and comfortable with himself.
- Small town origins who spent his youth around fields and forests - still likes to wander in nature and feels at peace when walking in the woods, away from the busy modern life.
- A cosy dress sense: prefers button-up shirts, cardigans, trousers and casual headwear that lets his bangs pop out. Likes natural tones over vivid colours.
- Nordic vibes. Maybe someday canonically he'll actually become Finnish, but TBC on that. He's still new here, let him get comfortable first before the lore begins to officially set in stone.
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I've been toying around the idea of a new character for a good while now but didn't have a clear focus for why I should have one - and for me that's a big part of why I would want to stray beyond my own fursona. But it was at AC this year when a sudden flash of inspiration struck me during a quiet moment, when I was observing the flurry around me and thinking about things, and I ended up making a long list of hasty notes there and then while I sat on the con room floor. The ultimate underlying realisation that lead to the vague idea of Sepe taking proper form was that whilst Flint is me and I am Flint, these days Flint is also... not me. My wonderful foxy self (who will forever be my main identity) started out as just me-but-fluffy when I first came up with him, but over the years has morphed into a more distinct personality of his own through my fursuit antics, the art I've gotten over the years and generally just by having fun with this whole cartoon fox shtick. He is the idealised furry version of myself, built on everything I hoped and dreamed about when joining the fandom and who then took to his own directions when he was unleashed into the world. But I've been doing a lot of introspection over the past several months (for reasons) and I've thought more about where I am in life right now both physically and mentally, where my roots lie, and how I could carry over that into my furry existence. A representation of where I'm standing in the present day wasn't necessarily something that Flint's larger-than-life presence always fit perfectly with.
That's when Sepe knocked on the door. He takes a lot of inspiration of who I am and where I am right now, and then spins that into this somewhat romanticised version of it all. So, the character description towards the start of this post may sound a little familiar for those who know me, at least to a certain degree. That's completely intentional - the "point" of Sepe is to reflect my actual self a little more, but portrayed through a filter that ultimately makes him a personality of his own. He's a character in a grounded slice-of-life narrative that has a different tone of fantasy to it, though still always soft and cartoony of course.
To put it in another perspective, Flint is an energetic thunderball of a hapless disaster who's barely walked out of the record shop before he's off to another side adventure, full of colour and curiosities. Sepe, left behind in the dust, then picks up his stuff and slowly travels back to his apartment by the roads less taken, where he puts on the music he just bought and sits down by the window to watch the world go by, enjoying the still for a while (Berninger meanwhile turned down the invite to join and stayed home minding his own business).
I'm really excited to expand on Sepe's world and personality through future pictures, to bring forth these calmer scenes and snapshots of life that I want to represent and which cross my mind often, where Flint's gaudy tropical shirts may not fit as well.
(And no, I seemingly can't get away from orange-ish colour patterns. Maybe when whatever character I think of in my 40s I'll make a radical curveball there)