An addendum to "Cupid Square Kat"

I thought I needed to add a little to that last post on the Cupid Square Kat, mainly about being rejected by the goodness and decency people over there at Zazzle.

Within 24 hours of rejecting my design for postage stamps, Zazzle awarded two (here's the first, and here's the second) other Cupid Square Kat designs Today's Best Awards.

Here are the designs that won:
Cupid Square Kat Premium Magnet
Cupid Square Kat Poster.

Crazy, I know.

Cupid Square Kat

Here's Cupid Square Kat's official photo.

He's caused quite the stir over at Zazzle. I tried putting him on postage there, and they sent me an email saying he was rejected because the

"Design may be considered violent, profane, deceptive, abusive, menacing, harmful, or threatening"

Seriously.

Cupid Square Kat progress report #3

Getting into the home stretch here with the Cupid Square Kat painting. I can't let it go too long, because I'm painting with acrylics, and they tend to dry up too quickly to linger.

This first image shows a newly painted diaper and bow. I thought the color of the bow really helped. He seemed a little drab before I got that part finished.

And then here he is with the heart and arrow finished. This is just the photo I took when the painting was still on the easel, so the colors are a little off. I'll take "official" photos as soon as I'm satisfied that he's actually finished, and then I'll post them here.

If you missed the first posts on his progress, you can see them here, here and here. You can click on any of the images to see them biggie-sized.

I'll try to get him on some stuff at Zazzle ASAP.

Cupid Square Kat progress report #2

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.)

Cupid Square Kat progress report #1

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.

Cupid Square Kat in the making

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.