Index

I was diagnosed with ADHD in 4th grade but it went untreated until adulthood. I never realized how horribly it crippled me academically. For example, for a 4th grade english assignment on Frank Lloyd wright I spent 2 weeks making a model of his "Falling Water" building, and did the actual writing assignment the day before it was due. I didn't even have to make anything for this assignment, I just did it because I couldn't control myself. I have extreme difficulty finishing things that aren't engaging, and extreme ease making things that are. Thankfully, fursuits fall into the latter category! Surprisingly I never used Lego growing up, it was too expensive. I consider this a blessing, as Lego puts too many restrictions on what you can create. For me at the time, stiff cardboard and tape let me do so much more.

A moment that stands out in memory to me was when, around 6 or 7 probably... I wondered how a light switch worked? In my infancy the concept of "electrical stuff" was all "those green boards with all the cool looking stuff on them". I imagined that all technology had the same type of stuff in it, so certainly a light switch would too? So I asked my grandpa "whats in a light switch?". He, a little confused about the question, told me in plain english "well, all it does it pushes 2 wires together". For whatever reason this simple statement made something click in me. The idea that not all technology is some unimaginably complex thing...the idea that really complex things are just made from a bunch of very simple things, and if you understood how all the little parts worked you could figure out how the big things did too.

I was given some electronic kits as a kit, but for most of the components I had no clue what to do with them besides chew on the parts. I am by no means a prodigy, and it would take many more years for me to have a better understanding of electronic theory. What I did do, was use very simple electronics to make stuff I that I thought was cool. I really liked motors. I started by making little fans with cardboard blades. My grandpa had a slot machine in his basement and I was enamored by all the lights and spinny bits on it. I tried making my own slot machine in 4th grade. It was nothing more than a cardboard box, with a toilet paper tube inside it on a pin. I drew the different slot machine symbols on the paper towel roll and used a rubber band as a belt to drive it from a little motor. I foolishly brought it to school one day in 4th grade thinking that the teacher would care at all. Instead she confiscated it from me because it promoted gambling. In reality she was probably just tired of me bringing stupid things I made to class.

Shortly after this I went though puberty, and all of my curiosity and blissful ignorance was replaced with social anxiety and fixations of a typical middle schooler. This however started to fade after starting high school. I grew to be more confident in myself again, and by sophomore year I was back to making new costumes incessantly. I had no reason to wear them other than for Halloween. Imagine my excitement when I found out anime conventions were a thing!!!

I dont know how it took me this long to learn about conventions. It wasn't until i'd graduated highschool that a girlfriend told me about Ohayocon the year after in 2014. I wore a home-made deadpool costume. This was 2014, so there were no joke atleast 100 other deadpools. My homemade costume looked terrible but I had an absolute blast, I was hooked. Once I had more reasons to make costumes I ran with it. Gone were the days of cardboard. I began crafting with better materials, EVA foam and hot glue evolved into fiberglass and bolts.

Around this time I started working on cars and motorcycles as well. It was clear that fresh out of highschool, I had my fingers in too many pies. My ADHD still wasn't being treated and I dropped out of engineering school. Fixing cars and honing my crafting skills was just too much fun and took priority over grades. Ironically, shortly after dropping out was when I finally got treatment for my ADHD and it propelled me into fully realizing my dreams. Over the next few years I payed off the debt I immediately owed to college and saved up some more. All the while i'd been quietly chipping away in my workshop getting better at making cosplay. By the time the thrill of working on cars had fully waned, I had accumulated the money I needed to go back to school.

I almost lost it all again...because of all things World of Warcraft! In the summer of 2019 Classic WoW released, right before my first semester back. If I hadn't snapped out of it and quit classic WoW early into that first semester I surely wouldn't have come as far as I am right now. Thankfully, I did indeed put it down, and I went on to get a 98% in Calc 2, a complete 180 from before which gave me a huge boost of motivation to keep up with school. At the same time over the summer I quit my job as an auto mechanic. I also won the Judges award for my Dark souls Mimic Chest at Matsuricon. Things were looking really good going forward...

Then covid happened! Ok, well it may have not affected me as bad as others considering I spend most my time alone in my workshop. It did however put a big fat damper on conventions. I was fine with this though, because I had big fat plans, plans that needed a really long time to get finished. The plans were for my biggest cosplay yet, my magnum opus I thought to myself. I was going to make Dragonslayer Ornstein in his entirety (see Cosplay Corner for pics). Between classes I toiled away at the armor, busy all the time. It was actually to be made to fit my girlfriend at the time. She would be Ornstein and I would wear accompanying Elite Knight armor. It, however, was not meant to be. Toward the end of my completion date, just a few months after covid had put the whole world on lockdown, we split up.

It was a hard breakup for me, but if only I had known what it would lead to, or maybe I allready had? I say this because... a month before our breakup, amidst me at max workload between armors and schoolwork I decided to do something out of the blue for seemingly no reason. I decided to make a fursona, and a suit to go along with it. I had seen furries before at anime cons, and i'd always wanted to go up to them and talk but I was always so nervous. Why was I so nervous? Why did I feel this way? I didn't know. It just seemed really...fun? Like maybe the whole cosplay thing was just... a stepping stone to something else.

Even before the breakup i'd felt this way. Originally I thought I would just call my fursona Chuzzlepuff, my cosplay maker name. Nah that seems cringey, infact this whole thing feels cringey, but wait...then the name hit me. Yellowcake... YELLOWCAKE. its PERFECT. Its cool, its cute, its nerdy, its a radioactive uranium salt, its everything I wanted, and from then on whatever cringy sensations i'd been hung up on left me for good. I wasn't in any communities, I wasn't involved with any furries at all up to this point. All I knew was that I wanted to make a fursuit. I started by watching SkyeHigh studio's buckethead tutorial Here and I thought to myself "yeah, I can totally do this!". So, I got to work on Yellowcake 1.0. At the time I didn't even know what his patterns would look like. I decided on the colors according to what was available from BigZ fabrics to order. I was so satisfied with the head base i'd carved that I decided to go all in with a fullsuit.

It was around this stage in the process when the breakup happened. I was devastated but recuperated quickly. I still had work to do. Then things really took off. By chance, a mutual friend of ours was a furry and saw my progress pictures on Instagram. "what are you doing on instagram? you need to get on telegram dude". I reluctantly downloaded the app, and quickly cobbled together an account with the name Yellowcake, and then everything changed.

She invited me to just one or two groups. Then those groups became 4, then 10, then 100. It happened so fast. From my very first night downloading telegram I was all ready mingling with tons of people. I couldn't believe how easy it was. I couldn't believe how at home I felt. I couldn't believe how cool all these people were. Somehow some part of me knew this is where I belonged from the outset. I know it sounds so corny but I really cant put it into words any other way. Since joining the fandom almost 3 years ago I've just felt like a snug little puzzle piece, completely fulfilled by the role I get to play as a maker. I get butterflies being in this community in a way I thought you could only get for individuals. And now to top it all off, I found Dexter, an amazing partner I met in the furry community, and one who gives me those butterflies 10 fold.

You can probably guess how the story goes from here. I finished Yellowcake 1.0 and started making amazing friends in the fandom. I worked at a smaller auto shop for another year while knocking out semesters and trying out different things on yellowcake. Halfway through this year I got my first ever fursuit client Sparkles and it was a resounding success. By the time I was ready to quit my mechanic job I had just finished Maes Bats fursuit as well. At this point I dove in head first accumulating specialized tools for fursuit crafting. An industrial sewing machine, Air Brush equipment, 3D printer, laser cutter, vacuformer, sanders and cutting tools, a plethora of paint tools, electrical tools, glue guns, and so much more. I even got a cheap drawing tablet and started making digital art with Paint tools Sai. At this point i've begun to outgrow my workshop.

After finishing a few fullsuits and perfecting my style I decided to make a Yellowcake 2.0 head and refurbish the rest of the suit. Yellowcake 2.0 more perfectly matches my current design and build quality. Yellowcake 2.0 is the head you see in most of my fursuit pictures now.

I didn't stop there though. Starting in early 2022 I took the proto-pill and began working on a protogen fullsuit. Its gone through several design iterations and complete rebuilds from Protocake Prime to Protocake Mk.3. Protocake Mk.3 stands as my ultimate achievement thus far, and i'm actively working to rebuild the shells for a Mk.4 design. The Mk.4 will be made into molds for faster production.

And what of Ornstein then? During my transition to the furry community Ornstein remained in limbo around 90% completion. During the summer of 2022 I picked up where I left off and added the final touches to the armor just in time for Colossalcon. It was fun wearing ornstein for that con, with plenty of pictures and recognition. All of my furry friends were at that con too, in a group separate from me most of the time. I'll admit, the con just wasn't as fun without them. Despite all the glory of strutting around in my most passionate piece of work to date, I just missed them. That con settled it for me. My place was in the furry fandom, and nowhere could feel as much like home.

So here we are now at the end of 2022. Despite covid, the last few years have been amazing for me. I never thought i'd be where I am now, but i'm oh so grateful for it. I got lucky. Life gravitated me towards my purpose, and now that i'm here doing what I love I'm immovable. I'm graduating from Akron University in May 2023 with a Bio-Engineering degree and a minor in chemistry. I'm proud that I put my foot down to finish it, but honestly I don't know where i'll go from here.

To be honest, I just want to keep making fursuits...

Yellowcake Ref Sheet and Inspiration

High-Res Ref Sheet Here

When I decided to make a fursona/suit for the first time I has recently finished playing Black Mesa, a remake of Half life 1. You can allready see by the way I designed my rave fat pants, that I loved the industrial hazard zone aesthetic. Think Wipeout racing meets Half life. I *love* lava levels in video games. Its so bright and gooey and colorful. I played Sonic Spinball at a friends house around when I was 7 and the Toxic waste zone with all its gooey glowing green gave me a similar infatuation.

Before committing to joining the fandom i'd been secretly watching SkyeHigh Studios and Odin Wolfs videos. This was how I got introduced to Beauty of the Bass and their amazing...AMAZING work. I do mean insane. Fursuit makers are some of the most talented craftsman out there and I am humbled every day being amongst them, but Bass in particular is leagues above the rest in my opinion. Their personal suit has a beautiful yellow-white-black pattern with criss-crossed colors like a jester and lots of stripes along the limbs. Needless to say, Bass was a huge inspiration for Yellowcakes design.

The original Yellowcake design was actually a little over-complicated in places that made it not practical for being on an actual suit. I raked back that stuff for 2.0 and his aesthetic is more refined now.

The lambdas on the shoulders come from half-life obviously, infact Yellowcakes whole design was loosely based off a half-life HEV suit, mixed with Beauty of the Bass inspiration as well as, of all things Namekians from dragon ball? Well Namekians and Cell. Akira Toriyama liked to draw the muscle groups on these guys with a stripe pattern kind of like a snake. You can see a similar design on my calves. I have a large nuclear trefoil on my back, you just never get to see it in pictures but its there. The number 3329 on my chest is a nuclear shipping code for trains, but on my VRchat avatar it was switched to 808 because of UV-symmetry. The 808 comes from the iconic Roland TR808 drum synthesizer. The Elbows and knees have large X's on them and the ankles have hex nut shapes. This was supposed to look more mechanical, it sort of failed at that but it stuck regardless. The thorax being yellow, and abdomen being black with green lamella was to mimic the half life HEV suit.

My main tail, the one with the stripes, was meant to look like vertebrae like a skeletonized tail. That much detail wasn't possible at the time. It doesn't look like vertebrae but its definitely cool enough to stick around. The larger tail was just using extra fur to make something cool. Its too big for me to wear usually and you wont see it in most of my art. I did however add tail bags to the base of my tails and a sort of, tool wrap to the ends. In practice I added this to circumvent floor dragging from dirtying the tails. This however, was not practical, but i still like the canon of using your big tail as a sort of toolbelt and 3rd hand.

Yellowcake has 2 big hex nuts on his left ear, and 2 chunks missing out of the top of his right ear, probably from some machining accident. He also has an optional septum ring, but that needs taken out when working with nuclear reactors and superconductors, which happens often. The goggles were made first with eva foam, then drawn later to fit that design. The edges of his nose and goggles are a deep blue. This is supposed to emulate the beautiful blue of Cherenkov ratiation in nuclear reactors. I later modeled a VRchat version of my goggles using Team fortress 2's scout goggles. Yellowcakes hair is poofy at the top and long in the back. Its a ride or die mullet.

The stripes along the bridge of his nose and spikes on his cheeks just look cool af. The sclera of his eyes and tip of his tongue are tinted green from heavy metal toxicity, mostly uranium and radium. He's somehow built up a tolerance to it. He sometimes wears a bandana along with the goggles. He prefers to wear work gear mostly. This consists of tall olive drab combat boots and baggy olive drab breeches with plenty of pockets. He's usually shirtless, instead wearing heavy duty suspenders fitted with all sorts of tools, as well as a geiger counter and dosimeter. He uses heavy duty fingerless gloves to still get finger and claw dexterity. He has a self-contained rebreather for EVA's while mining asteroids and during nasty reactor repairs. He also keeps an 8 gauge double barrel shotgun in the cab of his mech, just incase of pirates. It uses 00 shells filled with depleted uranium buckshot.

I've slowly built up a world around Yellowcake. He is a breeder reactor maintenance technician and does side jobs mining asteroids with the "Thorium Jackaltron". Its basically a big Gundam / Metal Gear but filled to the brim with mining equipment. The end of its tail is a large wedge drill bit. Its also equipped with a grappling hook, and tungsten carbide chainblade over the head and back like a mohawk, for cutting away rock. Its got a large explosive stockpile over one shoulder for placing depth charges in asteroids. The mech is powered by a molten thorium salt reactor. The reactor powers a hydraulic turbopump for the suits kinetic movements. The tail drill is a direct drive from the reactors flywheel, as are the turbojets on the back for rocket propulsion. The smokestacks in the back dont actually exhaust hydrocarbons, its just water vapor from the salt cooling system. All of yellowcakes stuff is tied to the cargo bay above the cockpit with rope netting. The vacuum of space keeps making his beer cans explode, he should probably do something about that. He likes to leave the cockpit open where there's atmosphere so he can have a smoke without stinking it up.

Yellowcake 1.0

Version 1 of Yellowcake, the first fursuit I ever made. To be honest, I think the head still looks really cute. A lot of 1.0 was made with sub-par materials. The eyes are window screen instead of proper buckram. The head liner is just fleece, the scruff is awkward, and the ventilation isn't great. The body suit was entirely hand stitched, and seams started to pop at the very first con. I reinforced the whole suit with double stitching and that fixed the problem. This is the same bodysuit that I still wear today, though I plan to make an updated version eventually.

The tails were also stuffed with...frankly trash originally. Bubble wrap and crumpled up paper. the digi padding was also foolishly made with POOL NOODLE foam originally. needless to say, this did not prove to be the most optimal digipad experience.

I had enough fur to make 2 tails. I made my smaller striped tail thats common with my sona, and a larger tail with a different design. The large tail, unsurprisingly, was *way* too big. It sits in my closet today as a reminder that yes, size does matter.

My suit has a radioactive trefoil in the back but you rarely see my backside for pics of it. There is also a 3329 on the front that is a code for shipping nuclear waste on trains.

Yellowcake Halfmask

Yellowcake 2.0

The transition to Yellowcake 2.0 was mostly just making a new head. Yellowcake 2.0 more closely represents the kind of suit quality I make now. I also repaired and reinforced some other parts, re-stuffed the tails with proper poly-fil, and airbrushed on new black light paint

Also BIIG FOOKIN EARS

Protocake

Protocake was the natural evolution from fursuits. I didn't even know protogens existed when I joined the fandom and designed yellowcake. But look at Yellowcake...look at where my patterns are, its almost like I was *designed* to work as a protogen. The shoe fit, so I became a robot princess<3 You can see everything about Protocakes evolutions, future design plans, and custom protogen pricing at the Protogens&Synths page.

Memes

Am I actually radioactive?

Well, yes. Sometimes. It depends on the mood! Where'd I get this obsession with nuclear physics? Its really just the pinnacle of science. I only have a cursory understanding of it anyway, actual physicists are on a whole nother level!

My sona was originally going to be chuzzlepuff, my cosplay name. I was gonna be a pretty standard natural color jackal... but then the name came to me. Yes the name came first, randomly one day sitting in the break room of my auto shop. YELLOWCAKE. ITS PERFECT. ITS COOL. ITS CUTE. ITS A RADIOACTIVE URANIUM SALT. I proceeded to quite literally design my sona as I built the fursuit. It all revolved around that name. As times gone on i've adopted the identity even more.

I started by purchasing a pretty standard beta/gamma digital detector and a few thorium samples. Eventually I decided I wanted a cooler geiger counter...*THE* geiger counter...the CD-V 700. They are from the 50's but you can get em on ebay for around 100 dollars but they need rebuilt. I ended up buying 2 along with a rebuild kit to swap parts until I had one functional counter. Now I have a few different cool cases along with a CDV715 and several dosimeters, good for if we uhh, actually get nuked.

Any nuclear obsessed individual worth their salt has radioactive uranium glass and fiesta ware, I've also got several thorium mantles for calibration, and tritium tubes (imagine glowsticks that glow for 20 years).

For kicks, at cons I stash sealed marked packages of thorium under my paws and in a second tongue of my fursuit. Its not harmful, but people get a kick out of it when the counter goes off near me.