Evolution of Milletta
Why would my raccoon fursona be listed here you say? Well, Milletta has actually changed in appearance over the years. Not just in style, but my fursona has actually changed in both species and gender. Sounds strange, eh? Well, buckle up and start reading, because it's gonna be quite a story.
The hat-wearing guy.
You may not believe it, but Milletta used to be a guy that had a winter hat covering his head who was often referred as "Linus", though his real name was unknown. Despite the hat covering his entire head the facial expressions could still be seen. During this entire period the Milletta character was unnamed, but has been referred by multiple names over the years, like "Linus", "Dumb-Crow", "ConkerGuru", and so on.
The character's origin can be traced back to some old letters that I sent back in 2006. These images are courtesy of Okidokicharlie, who sent me these shots from the letters which featured the character. This is probably the earliest of the Milletta character to have ever been drawn by me.
Looking back on the second pic, I probably had no idea on what her palette was going to be, so I picked the colors I thought looked best on Milletta. Had I been drawing that scribble today, I would've picked entirely different colors for the character. A red hat, green shirt, blue trousers, and yellow shoes?! Nope, not today.
A few small details seen in the first pic that was absent from later scribbles are shoe laces, the initials "L B" on Milletta's shirt, and the eyes having an outer ring.
The below images are panels from an old page with three comic strips in it, which I probably drew out of fun.
Milletta's design here is mostly the same as the images above, only a bit refined.
During this time I probably envisioned this persona of mine as an guy who could use his artistic skills to create things like doors, objects, and so on. One small detail compared to later appearances is that Milletta has five fingers on each hand instead of four.
In 2010 this guy was given a slight redesign, where he now sports a Wario moustashe on his face. This design was used a couple more times during 2011. 2012 saw the character's design being reverted to his first appearance, but also removing a few details in the process.
2011 also saw a change in his design for my new deviantart ID picture. The intention was to perhaps use this version of Milletta for future drawings of mine. It never happened though...
The change into a raccoon fursona, and a change in gender.
Year 2013 was when Milletta's design was radically changed. Throwing my old hat-wearing persona out the window, I settled for an raccoon fursona. The "Milletta" name hadn't yet been decided on, so the character was still called by whatever username I was having at the time, "ConkerGuru" in the case of the drawing below.
October 2013 also saw my raccoon fursona being updated again, this time based on the Lucy character from the Lazy Lucy series. Even so, here Milletta looks quite similar to the most recent version of Lazy Tily, one of my own characters. May not be why this version of Milletta was scrapped, but looking at this again, she DOES look quite similar to Tily in many ways.
The failed Lazy-Lucy inspired redesign...
In 2014 I attempted to update my deviantart ID pic. This time I was going for a character design in the style of the Lazy Lucy series. As for how it went... well, let's just say it only caused confusion in more ways than one. This Milletta redesign was pretty much scrapped slightly after the dA ID pic was uploaded.
Turned back into a raccoon again.
After the failure that was the redesign of my raccoon fursona, she was never to be seen again until 2016 where she had been reverted back into a raccoon. During this time Milletta begins to resemble her final look. She was still without any real name though, and many details about her design had yet to be finalized.
The raccoon fursona's new design and name.
After years of fiddling around with my fursona's general design, in 2017 I finally got it nailed down. While an sketch from late 2016 does show the fursona's current design in full, there is still a number of small differences between that sketch and later drawings, namely the zig-zag-like patterns on the bottom of her dress being missing, and highlights on her eyes.
Starting with these drawings, my fursona's name is from this point on "Milletta". A first Milletta was going to be male in gender, but female in appearance. It wasn't until 2021 that I decided the character's gender should be female, mostly to avoid further confusion not only for myself, but for others as well.
In short, Milletta has changed quite a lot over the years, and compared to most of my other characters the changes were rather drastic. One thing still characteristic of Milletta today is like her first few "ancestors" she can sketch things to create real objects. One other change is her personality. Nowadays Milletta is much more reserved and controlled of herself, and doesn't overreact as much. She still gets a bit jumpy when something unexpected happens though. She's also pretty shy when it comes to public spaces.