Reigniting the spark of determination to create art. @fruiteafursuitstudios
- mellowxartz
- Sep 29, 2025
- 3 min read
Dear Diary,
My name is Koda, I'm 20 and I live in Ireland!
I was always quite a creative child, but I don't think my love for creating art started then. While all the other children were busy playing outside with friends, I was in my own imaginary world, drawing things from shows I liked to watch or books I was reading. It turned into a way to relax, a way to escape — to cope and in a slightly more selfish way — to get praised for my good work. A lot of my friends are artists, and I ended up in art college despite swearing up and down that I wouldn’t go. Art is so ingrained in my life that there’s a fondness for it, even when I’m frustrated over a piece.
The range of the time I take for an artwork varies immensely lol, a quick MS paint doodle can take me less than a minute but costumes and fursuits can take months, sometimes even years of planning and work! It's hard to find an average where a lot of my art is just me picking up a new hobby.
My favourite material to work with? Ooh… tough question! For 2D traditional work, without a doubt it's gouache paint and paint markers. I've always loved painting, I'm not very good at it, but the process is so rewarding. For 3D work; fabrics. I do enjoy sculpting but clay has a really weird texture and I hate the feeling of dried slip on my hands - I much rather "sculpt" shapes with foam while making fursuits. Sewing is one of my favourite pastimes, and working with fabric is something that feels right for me!
A piece I’ll never forget making would definitely be my first ever fursuit. It was during the pandemic, I was stuck at home with boring online classes that half of the people didn't even attend. Sure, it's an unconventional hobby that is heavily misunderstood, but making that silly costume of a character that brought me joy changed my life for the better. It gave me something to look forward to — a goal to reach while I struggled with plummeting mental health. Putting the head — or mask — on is freeing. I don't have to worry about the facial expression I’m making, or worry about the outside being too loud or too bright. I started to go out to conventions post-pandemic, getting to slowly grow as a person and finding friends who made me feel good about myself; it’s an odd hobby and an ugly costume but to me it was the start of something that helped me in ways I can't describe with words.
A weird or unexpected place I take inspiration from would definitely be PUBLIC TRANSPORT. Anyone that knows me or talks to me for a moment will know just how much I adore public transport, specifically buses. There are so many different liveries to see, the history of how the buses changed over the years; it's all so incredibly exciting !!! Going out to the city to go bus spotting has reignited the spark of determination to create art after a few years of art block. I'm filled with ideas for costumes that are linked back to buses; and I'm constantly researching for more information and sourcing more material to know as much as I can when I'm creating my bus inspired artwork.
This is all for now!
Until next time,
Koda
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