I became obsessed with Archie Sonic at a formative age. Pretty self-explanatory I think lol. And then my middle school Sonic-sona I used on Smack Jeeves (who was an edit of Tails' sprites from Sonic Advance) evolved into my first fursona as I became more acquainted with the idea of furries. Then I was in the closet throughout high school after figuring out I was bi at age 14, and I found it very reassuring how many openly, flamboyantly queer people there were in the furry scene. I kind of kept the fact that I was a furry to myself, though. Then after becoming known for MLP fanart for a while and gaining an actual audience for my art I just pivoted to being a full-blown furry artist, like many other people did.