Birthday: Grumpy black cat

I love this grumpy Persian kitty. I’ve coloured him up once before — as a white cat — so this time I thought I’d challenge myself to see if I could get the necessary depth of colour for a black version without it just turning into a dark blob.

How:

This was not a quick image to colour. At least, not the way I did it. As this was part of my Copic Jumpstart “critters” homework, I wanted to make an extra effort to get as much texture into the fur as I could, and that takes time. I laid down a coat of the lightest grey as a base and then started flicking. Lots and lots and lots of flicking. I worked from dark to light, avoiding blending as much as possible, until I had covered the whole kitty in fur. And then I decided he wasn’t black enough, so I repeated the process and put down a second layer of fur.

I fussy cut him out and put a very light layer of grey over the white border, just to take the contrast down a notch as I knew I was going to place him on a black background.

The smile sentiment was die-cut from some toner card — we do have a laser printer, but I have yet to figure out how to get it to put down a really solid layer of toner — and foiled using the Minc mini.

I matted a black panel onto a purple card base and positioned the sentiment across the bottom. I mounted the kitty above it using some thin foam sheet.

On the inside of the card I stamped “it’s your birthday” to follow on from the “smile” on the front.

Challenges/Class:

Copic Jumpstart class

Supplies:

• stamps:
  Create A Smile – mini birthday
• digital stamps:
  Some Odd Girl – angry Persian
• dies:
  Lil Inker – smile
• foil:
  Deco Foil – purple
• Copic markers:
  fur – T5, T6, T7, T9
  ears / nose – T0, E00, E21
  eyes – YR24, YR27
• paper and card:
  Neenah – solar white – 216gsm
  Deco Foil – peel-n-stick toner card
  Papermill Direct – plain – dark violet
  Papermill Direct – plain – black
• miscellaneous:
  Minc mini