twoFUR tuesday! (will the puns ever end?)

Hello Beautiful People! In case you haven't heard the news......

 On Sunday afternoon I got the pledge that put me over the top for Catabet! So excited to already have this project successfully funded, so I can just coast through the next two weeks of the live campaign and focus on finishing the second half of the characters! I can't say it enough: THANK YOU ALL WHO HAVE HELPED ME TO MAKE THIS FOURTH BOOK! I have been having a great time working on it and truly appreciate every pledge, every update like, every comment.  

So here we go with our two new kitties!

 J is for Jimmy
whose collection of patches
filled his orange jumpsuit
(and hid all the scratches.)

This one was time consuming but a real blast to make. My original thought was to replicate classic patches all over this kitty's jumpsuit. I searched and searched online for both racing patches and anything that screamed "classic," which I guess means 1970's to me?  I didn't really want to go the boy/girl scout direction, my most direct experience with the genre.  Oh, that reminds me of a story, so if you don't mind if I digress for a moment.....

As you may have guessed by my statement about the 1970's being the so-called "era of classic patches," I was coming of age during that decade. The image above was a familiar one of my youth--the ad in the back of the comic books that tempted many to fork over their hard-earned cash (haha--I just had a flashback to taping coins to an index card to mail away for stuff....also remember when people would accept postage stamps as legal tender!) to proclaim their message to the world. What one did I send away for, you ask? 

 I still laugh about it to this day because I think I was about 10 years old when I decided that this was the patch for me. Maybe 12, but certainly no older.  Oh....if I only knew then what I knew now! (At least I didn't pick the Confederate Flag!) But back to our friend Jimmy and his jumpsuit.

I decided to use a few classic racing patches on the jumpsuit because, well, the implication is that he's a race car driver or at least works in the pit. But then I thought it would be fun to think of patches that a cat might want on their jumpsuit. So, without further ado, here he is: 

 oops...I forgot to correct my misspelling of "glamour" This is not going to be visible in the book, but will be fixed before it goes out the door to a new owner.

 Jimmy is named for Jimmy Choo, a Malaysian designer best known for footwear. 

 Here's a process shot of my unpainted piece too:

 Now for our O cat, Otto.

 O is for Otto,
whose striped overalls
were the perfect attire
for pitchforking hairballs.

Otto is short for the Italian wünderkind Ottavio Missoni, who was both an Olympic hurdler AND a fashion designer! He was known for launching Italian ready-to-wear designs and there were a ton of great (seemingly personal, not pretentious) photos of him online to choose from. Here's the one I picked of him and his favorite dogcat: 

I wanted my Otto to be wearing the classic blue and white striped OshKosh B'Gosh overalls, so I tried to make his legs as long as possible to accentuate those stripes.

 but somehow they seem to have shortened a bit in the finished piece: 

 Here's my painted figure, hairballs and all! Note the MEOW patch in stead of the Osh Kosh version. I guess these two kitties have something in common.....

 I must give a shout-out to my neighborhood art supply store Collage, where I ran over at 6pm tonight to get some felting wool to make the hairballs. Not only is this an art supply store that is 4 blocks from my house, but it also allows me to bring my beloved doggie Weegee inside whilst I shop, AND to my delight, also sells already-felted balls that were perfect for my project. As I finish this update, I'm closing up a 12 hour workday and am very grateful to be able to enjoy a nice glass of wine and not be poking my fingertips with a felting needle. Best three bucks I ever spent, unless you count that "Help! I need loving!" patch!!!!!

So it may be a bit before I'm able to post a finished piece again....and when I say "a bit," I mean I've decided to devote the week to constructing the rest of the Catabet characters so I can paint and reveal them during the final week of this Kickstarter campaign. I have a few cat-related field trips that I am hoping to report on to fill the gap. 

Thank you all again. Truly. 

If you haven't joined in on the Kickstarter yet, there's still time to pre-order and help me make Catabet even better. Click here to view the campaign and grab a book and/or custom kitty at a price lower than you'll see when the book is on the market this fall.

take care,
Hilary