Santa card

For the Santa card assignment I was determined to draw a kitten.The inspiration for that came from some Russian Christmas cards I remember from my childhood which belonged to my mum and were from her childhood when it was trendy to exchange cards with random kids in Russia. I really loved the look of those and especially the ones with cats on them. Unfortunately I couldn't find any of examples of those online, but I guessed it's normal for something that would be about 25 years old, they probably only exist in private collections now.

I found a lot of cat pictures I could use, a huge inspiration for me was the artist Apofiss (top couple of paintings) and I really wanted to try something in a similar style. I started doing some photo studies of cats, but I quickly realized how hard it is to paint fluffy animals. I couldn't quite do it! I scrapped and deleted at least five paintings before I even got to the stage of working on them seriously. Fail faster. 

 

I saw that it wasn't working so I went back to sketching out ideas. I tried some more cats, cartoony ones, even a tiger, a normal boring Santa and a Pyramid Head Santa.

Then I thought-Penguins. That was perfect. I already had an established style for them from my Tortichki game and I could easily design a Santa penguin. And that's what I did in the end for my final painting.

I feel disappointed that I failed at drawing a cat, but I don't feel discouraged. Drawing realistic fur isn't easy, but it's something I could practice and master. It's not a secret I'm a cat lover so I will probably end up painting some again in the near future. But for now, Merry Christmas!