The appeal of anthros vs ferals vs humanoids

I prefer feral oc's over anthro or humanoid. I don't know what it is, but I feel like I can fully express myself with feral oc's (no I am not part of the otherkin community, I don't believe in the whole identifying as a nonhuman being). I have always read books with personified animals and they just tend to be my favorite compared to other novels or fantasy series centering around anthro-like and humanoid beings. For example my favorite series currently is The Sight and Fell by David Clement-Davies, then the Mistmantle Chronicles by M. I. McAllistar, and finally the Warriors series by Erin Hunter. The only humanoid series that I have enjoyed and finished is the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini and even then there were fully feral dragons that were sort of able to have their own point of views we could see through and those were the parts I enjoyed the most. Another humanoid series I nearly finished (I just hated the last book too romancey for my tastes) was the Steel and Stone Series. Which if you've read it or even part of it it certainly has its flares of what I would consider completely feral animosity.

I have always been fascinated with animals and how they're societies work and how we humans see ourselves in them versus what they actually are. Its always been a unique concept to me and in my art I really like to highlight the reality even if its through cartoony art. Like for eagles, more often than not eagles are often seen scavenging and stealing, but the USA and many other countries as a whole think its some honorable and proud bird just because of its size and where it stands in the food chain of raptors. Or even hyenas we see them as giggling maniacs ready to snatch the honorable lions well fought for prey when in all honesty hyenas hunt down their prey more often while lions steal from hyenas majority of the time. All these little misconceptions can be played with and twisted to make some imagery that without ferals and our human conception on them would not be possible.

I also just find roleplaying feral animals much easier and far less mundane than roleplaying a humanoid or anthro. Something about needing to do basic survival things as well as fight for your life everyday as a feral animal with thoughts and feelings is so much fun to play with. I have to problem solve things and find sound reasoning to get by what would normally be considered impossible. Like for hyenas I like to think of them carving sculptures into ivory because 1) their jaw has a 1,100 psi, 2) their teeth are literally meant for crunching and carving into bones. They become artists in a way and can make themselves little decorations for their living space or they can make accessories. they can have earrings by literally shoving a piece of stone, bone, or ivory through their ear. No need for thumbs in that situation, just a couple of buddies. The things you can reason past with just looking at little features of an animal are amazing. You want to have a string necklace but you are a lion with no thumbs? Find a baboon! You won't be able to communicate without drawing pictures, but you can ask for a string and pay them with protecting their girls from invading foreign male baboons. Bam! Now you've got yourself a string tier and maker! Where do you get the string from? You can steal it from humans, weave long pieces of hair (lions mane, zebra hair, wildebeest hair), or even use flexible pieces of wood, as long as its dampened regularly.

I love drawing ferals as well, wild animals are just so much fun to draw and play with style wise compared to basically anything else. I've tried having humanoid chars, I've tried having anthro chars. In fact I do have a demon char, that I haven't posted yet, but I have one and she's just not a favorite, the only time I draw her is occasionally in my math class when the lecture's getting a little too boring. I just don't have that kind of connection really, I'm hoping after reading The Six of Crows duology by Leigh Bardugo that I'll have more of a connection to humanoid characters because I would someday like to rp as a humanoid character, and I would like to have some. But currently my major influences have all been book series where ferals have been the main points of views, not humanoid or anthro chars.

When I first starting getting into the whole OC thing I preferred ferals because I found them easier to draw. Since then I lean towards anthros a lot more, especially after I "officially" joined the furry fandom nearly a couple of years ago now. I still like ferals too though! When it comes to my animal based characters I tend to switch between drawing them as anthro and feral.

Being honest, I'm quite picky with humanoids. I prefer to more monstrous or kemonomimi or even just magical humans/humanoids than ordinary humans. I mean, I can be picky with characters anyway but it also comes down to humanoids being harder for me to draw at times.

The one human character I have isn't even technically human because he's a lich.

All in all my ranking goes something like this: Anthros>Ferals>Humanoids

There's basically nothing that I like about drawing humans, nor is there any reason a character would have to be/resemble a human for me to feel a connection with them.  In fact, it's often easier if they're not, because you have more options for showing appealing expressions.  Plus a nonhuman character's design can be boiled down to specific appealing physical traits that may not even be compatible with a human design.

Also it's cute when sapient, nonhuman characters have little animal behavior quirks (Wander chasing a laser pointer), or when they're aliens or demons or something and other characters mistake them for regular animals (Stitch as Lilo's dog, Luci as Bean's cat).

And then sometimes you get characters that are intentionally uncanny valley-ish and that's pretty great too.  Things like Transmutate from Beast Wars.

When I first joined, I had mostly feral OCs from what I dub the "pixel adopt boom era" on Chicken Smoothie from 2013-2015. I massed a bunch of those and Warrior Cat OCs, but overtime, I grew out of ferals and converted most to anthro or gave them away. Nowadays, I mostly have human and anthros because I can't relate to ferals much anymore, nor do I enjoy drawing them much anymore. I do have a few closed species and Pokemon characters, though. Might convert them to gijinkas because I'm on the path to weebville.

Rarely do I making humans (or almost humans like the captains' species in Pikmin). I just HIGHLY prefer making nonhuman things (the ones I have, like Tilly and (Ste)Ven, were made for story purposes but I made independent ocs I guess?). I really love making ferals the most, if you count pikmin as ferals. But I do love making creatures that aren't pikmin.

I have always been more drawn to human/humanoid characters since I feel way more comfortable in how I go about creating stories for them. I just don't have any ideas on how I'd use a feral or anthro character. (Not to mention I am pretty rubbish and drawing animals)

Starting out, I think I was mostly into humans/humanoids. Mostly I started making OCs in relation to Pokemon, who wouldn't want to be a Pokemon trainer? Best job in the world, hands down. But I also saw people roleplaying as the Pokemon, which seemed weird to me, but I was always an "to each their own!" kind of child, so I didn't mind. I just didn't join them because I felt it would be weird to be a trainer capturing people.

Of course, going back even younger, as a child, I would pretend to be a dog or a velociraptor sometimes, so maybe that's why I never judged.

Anthros were always weird to me. Especially when people sexualized them. But, as always, I was an "to each their own" kind of person, so I never said anything, I just let them be happy, but I kept to my humans and humanoids. In time, I developed my OC-owned Pokemon, so I would enjoy writing for them, too. But I guess I considered them side-characters more than main characters. Even though I would write scenes just with the Pokemon, my main and only focus and thoughts were on the humans.

Then I got into Closed Species, which are, of course, mostly not human at all. I started with the feral ones and treated them like my Pokemon. "That's pretty, I want to own that!" Then, I got into the anthro-typed CS and found I could give them personalities more like humans.

And now I own all three types and I enjoy them all equally. Though they all tend to morph into each other a bit. My ferals and anthros aren't specifically one or the other, even if they only have art in one form. I kind of lump them together, I guess, as non-humans in terms of how I see them (My TH folders show differently because I like sorting things in a specific way, it doesn't show how I feel about them!).

Over a decade since I've begun making and writing for OCs, I finally have a sona character. She will have feral, anthro, and humanoid forms as she is a shapeshifter. \o/

Practically all my characters are feral. 

I struggle to draw humanoids and some anthros. I'm working on improving at drawing humanoids though. 

Regardless, the reason I got into ferals specifically was because of a book called Promise of the Wolves. Well I've always loved animals, but promise of the wolves was such a well written piece of art I couldn't stop thinking about it. It inspired me to design my first ever character, Night, in 2010. 

Also I struggle to find humans and anthros likeable, I suppose? I like a couple of human characters but that happens once in a lifetime and is more often related to the way they are drawn being appealing to me rather than their personality or design.

Oh dear, I've been through all of these, ahah... When I was just starting out drawing on my own at 11, I used to draw anthro character. Then when I was 13 and joined Deviantart, I started drawing feral characters... in a way. Do ponies count? Now I turned all my OCs into humanoids, with the kemonomimi characters having a feral animal form. But most of my humanoids still have a furry/anthro/feral/pony form due to me wanting to give other people who only know how to draw furries/ponies a chance to draw my OCs.

I have humanoids because they're easier to draw, and also because it's simplest to write stories with them. I've had animal characters in the past, but I never could really connect with them? Somehow I just like the idea of having visually human and ordinary Joe Schmoe characters, although below the surface things quickly get weird.

I am branching out more, though, partially because of my slow slide into the furry fandom. And also because aliens. And birds. Birds.