Rotty Blog

Let’s get moving on this little guy, how about.

Started painting the background, and I still wasn’t completely sure what colors I wanted to use. I didn’t want to go with the standard red and white Valentine’s day thing, but I knew the heart would have to be red, so whatever colors I decided to use would have to work with the red without overwhelming it.

Went with a bluish purply. I knew the wings needed to be an off-white color, so I went ahead and painted them in, too.

The next part wasn’t so easy, and I hope I didn’t totally blow it. For the cat, I decided to go with a pinkish color even though I understand (seriously, I do) that cats pretty much don’t come in that color unless you’ve got some serious issues going on there. The problem was, he was starting to look like an internal organ.

I thought about it a while and decided it might still be O.K. if I toned the pink down a little. Maybe desaturate it. So that’s what I did.

Then I added some more shading and highlights and started messing with his eyes.

And then a little more eye messing. I think I’m satisfied so far, but there’s still a lot of details to go.

I’ll post some more progress photos later this week. (You can click the images to see them bigger.)

After I sized the sketch of my Cupid Square Kat, the next thing I needed to do was get that little guy transferred to the board I’ll be painting him on. But before I did that, I had to clean and prime and gesso the board to get it ready. So here’s that blank canvas waiting for an idea.

And here’s Cupid Square Kat drawn on it and ready to get a little color. You can click on the image to make it bigger if you can’t see him.

I decided it was about time I followed up on the holiday Square Kat thing I started last Halloween and, of course, the next holiday coming up will be Valentine’s Day. So here he is, my Valentine’s Day Square Cat Cupid.

I’m noticing that my Square Kats seem to be following a pattern of being a little stabby. Hopefully they’ll grow out of it.

O.K. Having a little trouble finding a name for this Square Kat, but it will happen eventually. The first one was a little easier to figure out for some reason. Of course, I’m open to suggestions.

Here’s a new Square Kat for you. His name is Buster, named after an all-black cat my family had while I was growing up. Yes, he had an attitude. He would hide under the open stairs to the basement and wait for anybody who walked down to swat at their ankles through the stairs. And somehow we never cut his claws. In hindsight I suppose that was a mistake on our part.

Buster, to the relief of most everyone involved, isn’t with us anymore.

I decided to paint these initial Square Kats digitally, post them on The Rots’ Facebook page, and crowdsource some names. It looks like this first little guy is named “Nacho.”