Man, I grew up with sonic videogames and comicbooks and somehow managed to miss the furry community AND deviantart until years after I stopped bothering with the franchise (Read: when dreamcast happened.) Good god, level twenty coincidence on that dodging.
I think by the time I was doing fan characters of anything, I was making up pokemon. I distinctly recall making a plant-type evolution for eevee back when they only had the original three.
(Spoilers ivyon is way better than leafion)