Who are they? It involves four characters, who first began in comic strips and then graduated to illustrations. Amber (a finnish spitz) is the older sister, Harp (a red panda) is the baby of the family, and "Hokum" (a fox-terrier stuffed toy) is Harp's silent companion. Tig is a teenage anthro feline creature called a charachilynxter who is the "surrogate mother" of Harp, Hokum and Amber. The characters appearances and personalities have been altered and has become more polished over the years, but the basic idea has stayed in tact. Harp and Amber were quadrupeds when they were babies (ages 0 to 2) in the comic strips, but then graduated to biped anthros (like Tig) when they grew up (ages 3 and up).

What's the setting? The world they exist in is Earth, but the only change in this Earth is that anthros/furries exist in it as well (anthro-born quadrupeds evolve into biped anthros as they near age 13). Humans, animals and anthros coexist (sometimes peacefully, sometimes not), so some towns like Tigville are populated completely of anthro-kind to cure prejudices. These four particular characters live in the middle of the Michigan wilderness, 2 miles away from the nearest village called Tigville. The house and acres of land have been named the FirWilderness Sanctuary Station. Their home is in the old Tigville Railway Station which was abandoned for decades after the village was moved. Outside their home sits a two-plane-sized airplane hangar that they recently put up to house all the stray animals that they take in. Harp also uses a corner of it to store props and sets for some of his filmwork. 

What's the basic storyline? Tig takes in baby Harp, who she finds is too fond of humans and anthros and cannot be returned back to the wild. Tig becomes a surrogate mother to him and her adopted puppy Amber, and they go through situations that involve learning together and adapting to one another, which is basically what the comic strips are about. Tig later turns the station/home into a Pet Sanctuary, raising stray animals and adopting them out when they are healthy enough. Eventually they have money problems and must go into a second-business together to keep their sanctuary running, so they adapt a vaudeville act and put it on at the Tigville Theatre, and at other surrounding towns. They end up making enough cash to carry on with their rescue work.

What are they doing now? Amber and Harp (now age 18 and 17) have gone into an independant film business together called "FirWilderness Studios", which is currently making their first silent film. Tig is still running the sanctuary, which now has 20 dogs (most of them pitbulls from Detroit), 16 cats, and 2 birds.

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Character pictures & history

Meet Harp & Hokum

Meet Tig (coming soon)

Meet Amber (coming soon)

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F.A.Q.

  Where does the name FirWilderness come from? The sanctuary is out in the wilderness amongst many fir trees. It's as simple as that. They put the two words together because that's the way it sounds when said. The word "fir" could also be connected with the word "fur", since they are all furries.

  Why do Harp, Tig, and Amber live OUTSIDE of Tigville? They found that their interests were stuck in both their chosen era, and also the modern era. Harp loves the trains and learning about the new machine technology. Amber loves the punk-goth clothing and thrill-rides (bungee jumping, skateboarding, rollarblading, rollarcoasters, etc.). Tig likes the access to the fast-food and the antique shops. Since they all have different chosen eras and live in the same house, it's impossible to model every room in the house (furniture and objects included) after one specific era, which somewhat defies the rules in Tigville. Also the world wouldn't be able to send stray animals to the sanctuary if it were inside Tigville because there is also rules about no humans entering the village, so it would be a burden to have all the animals left at the village gates awaiting health inspection and so on. There is also more available land outside of Tigville, so that makes it easier to build and expand the sanctuary if needed.

Why do the characters have that "Lion King" colored ring around their eyes and brows? It isn't some original idea that Disney had created. The idea of using a light solid color around the eyes to highlight the eye and to show brow movement has been around for centuries. Clowns use the same technique of applying white make-up around their eyes and blackening their brows so that audiences in the back of the theatre could clearly see their facial expressions from far away. This technique was also used in silent films and by stage performers, who also trace their eye shape with black eye liner to make their eyes more visible. Tigers, finnish spitz, and red pandas have white or cream-colored highlighting their eyes also, so I combined that with the technique used by clowns and performers. I know that there are millions of Lion King fans who now use that eye-ring design in fan art, and I didn't want these three to be taken as just some Lion King-influenced characters. These three characters are heavily involved in theatre and clowning, so that's where the idea sprung from. I tried to make it look as far apart from the Lion King eye-rings as possible, but I doubt it looks different enough.  

How do they wear stage make-up? Tig has green curly stripes in a few pictures on her page, and Harp accentuates his cheeks with a light shine (which looks like shiny human skin) and the fur around his eyes (where human lashes would be) are blackened so that his eyes can be seen from a distance and told apart from the white fur above and below his eyes. This is applied and not natural to them. Tig literally sprays paint over the original markings with a base-paint with the surrounding color (apricot for the top and white for the underside), and then puts a stencil over the area and sprays in the new design. The paint is made up of a sticky solution that clings to the hairs and comes off soap and water. Harp often has a problem with this paint since water is often used in the act, so he uses product somewhat like water-proof mascara that takes a special cleaning solvent to wash off.

Old Cartoons

comics and group pictures 

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