Guests of Honour
Every year we invite two special guests to ConFuzzled to share their stories with our attendees by hosting a range of different panels throughout the convention.
Our Guest of Honour is often no stranger to the limelight, such as artists or writers of popular published furry works, while the Community Highlight is our opportunity to celebrate some of the amazing people that make up the more local furry community.
Read on to learn who our Guest of Honour and Community Highlight guests are for 2024.
Guest of Honour
Haps
Haps is the artist behind many beloved furry visual novels, but is most well known for Adastra, a rock opera about Roman wolves from space!
Born in the remote fields of Portugal, he spent most of his young days watching animated movies and drawing his favourite characters with munched crayons, like Baloo from the Jungle Book and Scratch from Ice Age. It wasn’t until his most lonesome times in high school that he discovered the furry fandom, and learned that the internet was much more than just Flash gaming websites. He found a whole array of likeminded people from all around the globe who were as crazy for fantasy and anthropomorphic characters as he was.
Being a queer person in a still conservative area, the furry fandom helped Haps through some tough times. Thorough the fandom he met a local gay furry couple, and going from hearing the sad stories and stereotypes about queer people throughout his childhood to getting to meet a couple with a Lord of the Rings engagement ring who also loved videogames, anime and cats caused his slumbering creative inner-flame to burn brighter than ever!
With his newfound courage, he came out to his family at the age of 18 and told them he wanted to follow an artistic career no matter the cost. Despite his worries, his family was happy to see him finally fighting for something, and he went on to study Design and then Drawing at Lisbon’s Fine Arts college. From there he met other artists and furries, amongst them his boyfriend who he has now been with for 8 years.
In 2017 Haps was contacted to make art for a visual novel in the works called Adastra. He did not expect the story to resonate with so many people as it did, but it proved to be something that helped readers through some of their their toughest times, especially with the pandemic right around the corner.
Haps believes there are some fights that you’ve got to tackle yourself, but it’s easier when you get to hear nuggets of lessons and stories from your dearest friends. It is thanks to such a diverse community like the furry fandom that he got to pursue his dream job in arts and meet his most special man, so he hopes he gets to stay and entertain you all for many years to come.
Community Highlight
Branston
Branston is a self-proclaimed “Horse Extraordinaire!” who hails from deepest darkest Surrey in the south east of England where he lives with his pet cat, Buffy. He’s been an active part of the furry community for over ten years and is the Community Highlight Guest of Honour recognising and representing the role of volunteering work.
He is an avid fursuiter, not just with his namesake who is a dappled Clydesdale horse… but also with Marshall the hyper-active border collie and Tango the brightly coloured but grumpy macaw. He puts these characters to good use as a volunteer for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), attending various collection and promotional events in Surrey to raise awareness for local animal rehoming, fostering and other support services.
Branston also volunteers as an operational first aider for the St. John’s Ambulance service, regularly supporting both large and small events throughout the year. During the coronavirus pandemic he took on a full time role as a volunteer vaccinator, administering over 3000 individual vaccinations in the fight against Covid-19 in his local community.
His daily life isn’t all just about volunteering however. He somehow manages to find time to engage in his other hobbies including wildlife photography, gaming, D&D and coffee roasting. Ask him about the true expression of joy that is a honey-washed Guatemala pea-berry roasted to just beyond first crack and expect to be cornered for hours in conversation without any hope of escape*.
As the convention approaches Branston is looking forward to making the topic of volunteering a key part of ConFuzzled 2024 and hopes to celebrate all those in the furry community that volunteer their time… And to talk to anyone that will listen about coffee.
