first exposure was like, kids cartoons and animated movies and stuff. like technically all the dinosaurs on Barnie are anthro animal suits, like u rly cant avoid furries in media generally. That being said, probably the most influential anthro/"funny animal" stuff for me was The Last unicorn, Spirit, looney toons, calvin and hobbes [and other newspaper cartoons], disney animal movies, that sort of thing. lady and the tramp and stuff.

When it comes to like Actual Real Furries like from the furry fandom specifically, i saw a couple ppl in fursuits at the local anime con and thought that was probably the coolest shit id ever seen at the time.

As for how i started drawing furry stuff: I've been pretty obsessively drawing animals my whole life, including fantasy creatures like dragons/unicorns and also like randomly splicing different animals together. i was also like MEGA into inu yasha when i was like 9-12. Followed a bunch of furry adjacent ppl on deviantart for a good long while and also was dating a furry in HS who sorta introduced me to the community. it was kind of clear to me at that point that furry porn was going to be my career path [this was both a correct assumption and a self fulfilling prophecy]

anyway THEN i got really seriously into closed species character design specifically and spent a good long while drawing stuff in closed species art roleplaying game communities [i even tried to make my own closed species but didnt have the skills or the reach at the time to really make that work. I also don't really enjoy all of the massive amounts of administrative work that goes into running a successful AARPG or CS, so i let that go in favour of just doing normal illustration out of financial necessity and also coming to grips with the fact that at the time i was not very skilled at character design.]

Thats about the time that i started really grinding my skills on illustration, made tons of really mediocre work for dirt cheap and clawed my way into some basic competence in digital art.

in terms of when i drew my Very First Furry tho, id say probs around like? 10 or 11 if you can count kemonomimis i guess? i kind of consider cartoon animals to be part of the overall anthro genre, as they often have human traits of some kind, kind of like how snoopy from peanuts is a little guy wiht opinions. and if thats the case then i suppose ive always been drawing furry stuff.

HELLO ok so i have 1 story for p much all my human chars which i talk about here: Do u have any human/non furry ocs? — YEAH I DO, one time me and my buddy spent about 2.5 yrs writing this extremely long romance intrigue historical fiction and … https://retrospring.net/@Boypretties/a/111886757629893890

and for the rest of my furry chars i have 2 world settings for them. the only chars that are rly strictly setting locked are Dream and Him, because these settings were developed around them as part of their character context.

Dream's setting: Dream lives in an idealized version of the real world, so like theres cars and phones and internet and stuff. She runs a cafe [one visual instance of the cafe is here: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/49173925/ tho its not strictly tied to this exact layout. its more of an aesthetically defined space and can have different features/layout. not pictured in this example bu thtere are a good amount of succulents in the windows+i often imagine the space having a skylight as well. lots of glass construction.] her universe is just like, basically the general furry genre and is located somewhere on the southwestern coast of the USA.
Dream: https://toyhou.se/12525120.dream

His setting: He lives in a fictionalized version of the early modern period in western europe, loosely based on the unicorn tapestries. its all very faux medievalist in this setting, very king arthur type of vibe [im cringe but im free]. this setting accommodates most "normal animal" furries as long as their colouration is natural and they dont have like crazy wings and stuff, so most of my chars can be slotted into this context either as members of His court or just ppl in the society. He is also a bastard warrior king from nowhere without an heir to speak of, so He has to compensate by being extremely competent at military strategy and pouring huge amounts of funds into arts and spectacles and feasts and shit to keep all His subjects loyal. Bit of a paranoid workaholic diva.
Him: https://toyhou.se/15234079.him-sona

Chars that mainly appear in this context are:

Florent - https://toyhou.se/12861709.florent
Florent is a dutch accountant [why does the netherlands exist in this setting? idk. my general feeling is this all probably happens pre-enlightenment so the exact location of His kingdom is kind of nebulous.] He invites Florent into His court and eventually makes him the head treasurer. He also fucks him and makes him do mental math during the act because Florent is just a sexy little calculator app to Him.
heres some sketches of Him and Florent doing their horny ass power dynamic loyalty display shit:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/750706221467828300/1204552337906208848/image.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/750706221467828300/1204552189314338856/image.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/750706221467828300/1204551603760267264/image.png
Also spoilers: Florent is also extremely workaholic and He will sometimes come in and order him to stop [usually to finger him or smth] [spoilers 2: He does this to ensure that Florent doesnt get burnt out and to maintain his loyalty, aka He is doing kingdom social maintenance work by doing this. these 2 high strung fuckers r perfect for eachother]

Clement - https://toyhou.se/18206499.clement
Clement can fit into either world but he has a specific role in His court, which is that he's the royal farrier [he maintains hooves and makes horse shoes/shoes for other hooved animals in the court]
He hooks clement up with florent and watches them ffuck sometimes because he finds out florent has a thing for clement.

I know this question was supposed to be about setting but let me be clear: He is so fucking horny and not even regular horny He's like advanced horny. Dream is also horny. All these fucking characters are randy as hell. Florent's got that repressed hornitude, u know the type.

YEAH I DO, one time me and my buddy spent about 2.5 yrs writing this extremely long romance intrigue historical fiction and i made my 1 guy for this story and then it kind of just organically grew from there to an entire cast of characters to fill in the story, i think i personally made about 20 chars for this story [mostly side chars and family members of my couple main chars and also a villain char to make plot happen]
heres a bunch of sketches i did for that story [i was like doodling little illustrations for it and inserting them into the google doc as we went]
heres a bunch of sketches, mostly of my main guy Vivian [big guy with dark hair]
dudes got that fucked up backstory and also is like amelia bedelia, guy will misunderstand the most basic shit. he has a large black horse named little fella that his bf bought for him.
u will also notice a small woman with dark hair, she's my other romantic lead in the story. extremely uptight lesbian noblewoman married to my villain who i havent drawn bc he fucking sucks lol. her name is Ottilie
OC drawings for that story:
https://sta.sh/01fkbc4a8oel
https://www.deviantart.com/feltstickers/art/OC-sketches-862144749 [Vivian AU nonsense, suit pic is from a funny little slice of life au where they live in california and vivian never killed any assassins in self defense. the cowboy pic is purely aesthetic, there isnt any story abt him doing that]
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/769258112447152209/1204539107473363074/image.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/769258112447152209/1204539520993726575/image.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/769258112447152209/1204539872258433164/image.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/769258112447152209/1204540265587810324/image.png
in his original text vivian gets back to england on a barge [after almost being assassinated for some rly complicated reasons which boil down to he was fucking this young nobleman and the guys dad found out and it was 1870] and then wanders around the countryside breaking into barns and shit until he coincidentally breaks into the house of Elliot, his chronically ill former school friend who takes him in. and they fall in love and go around trying to accomplish goals while the villain who is married to the cousin of that dude he was fucking back in belgium just like doesnt like him and is trying to ruin both their lives on account of being a shithead [he eventually sends his wife ottilie to the elliot's family estate to snoop around but she becomes a double agent on account of elliots sister's huge boobs]

that like barely even scratches the surface of this fucking story tho lmao, like its genuinely got more pages than war and peace [this is not hyperbole, we counted the pages] and theres still an unwritten third act which is planned but me and my buddy are both extremely busy these days.