EEEEEWWWWW EW EW NO! Why did you make me dig through my old art!? Why? It hurts!
Oddly enough though, Cinder had a REALLY weird evolution. This is actually her OROGINAL design.
I was really into the Maximum Ride series by James Patterson,(a book series about children who were trapped in a laboratory and experimented on while they were combined with animal DNA to give them wings and such) when I was in around fifth grade and read them through most of middle school, basing my mane "PERsona" off of that. That's why Cinder's still a mutant to this day. Old habits die hard I guess.
Later on I started getting more into art and animation on the internet a brushing against the furry community without even realizing it. What I did notice was that a lot of people had animal versions of themselves. I had always made personas for whatever book or TV show or movie I was into at the time but they were always isolated and different. It just made sense to make a permanent, universal one, and after a few failed designs that didn't really stick I decided what better than to base it off of my already existing persona.
That's why Cinder's colors are so weird and slightly clashy, especially in the old picture like this. (It's the first one ever made of her) My original human had light brown fur on her hands and feet, dark brown hair, big talon-like claws, and tan ears, so I just translated those into markings and filled in the rest with a belly splotch and a color I liked (blue-grey). She also had side bangs for the longest time that, on top of being really un-fun to draw, just seemed to suggest a level of femininity and "angst" that I supremely lack. This design went on for a long time, tweaking slightly as I forgot things, the colors getting less obtrusive as I lost them and tried to replicate them over and over, eventually leading to the much softer version I use now. It kind of ended up going like an actual evolution. Slow and minute to the point of imperceptible until you look at the old and new side by side.
I also sort of had a thing for pointless insanity and blood with no context. Sort of a case of a kid first discovering they can do something, than rapidly overdoing it.
I also "learned to draw chibis" around this time
A couple picture like my current avatar and my first anthro picture of her are sort of lost to the ages since I got a new computer but that anthro picture was the last to include the side bangs before I abandoned it for the more, gravity-defying spiky Not-a-Mohawk-Mohawk/bangs I have now.
And here we have come to the end of the story. Settled for the past year and likely not to change again. I tried changing her colors since I've always associated myself with, and own, calico animals, but I just didn't seem right.