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Description
Long ago
Just like the couch you paw to sit on again
We are so far from you
Purring On

Just like the post you scratch to alterate
The lives of everyone you know

And's what's the worst you take
from every vase you break
And like the claws you'll stain
Well I've been holding on tonight

--My Chemical Romeowance, "Meowlena"

Happiest of All Hallows' Eves!!

I am just about cackling at my own puns here, but before I talk about that...

It feels like it's been so long since I was making art like this regularly, as opposed to mini-magnet creations. And that's probably because it really has been quite some time. But! I wanted to squeeze this one in, just in time for Halloween, for a few different reasons. Namely, I know the "2020 Art Summary" is coming up in a couple of months and I would like to no have two mini-magnet pieces on it in a row (since I only submitted practice mini-magnets in September, which I didn't realize at the time), Halloween kinda deserves a special art piece (in my humble opinion), and this Halloween is extra special because it's also the anniversary of My Chemical Romance announcing their Return!

So although I haven't kept up with my "special occasion kitty" drawings I started last fall (in large part due to things I discussed in The Woes of Social Media [Where have I been?] ), somewhere between finishing up Inktober and deciding I wanted to draw something preferably MCR-ish in time for Halloween, it did not take long for pretty much the exact idea you see here to pop into my mind.

This idea did partially come from this "Welcome to The Cat Parade" artwork that floats around the MCR fandom and is admittedly one of my favorites, but beyond that it's also just a culmination of things I like--cats, MCR, the contrast between cute and punk, etc.

Really, it's almost comical how solidly the idea landed in my mind and then how quickly I was able to go from the initial sketch to the final product, especially since it has been quite some time since I've made something like this. It took me one day, which is pretty much unheard of for me, for a full finished drawing. I have no other explanation other than my muse throwing me a bone this time. (Or perhaps to say it threw me some catnip would be better? )

Speaking of cat puns, you may have noticed something a little off about the MCR song quoted at the top of the description. That is the beginning of their song, Helena, adjusted to be more fitting with, well, the cat dressed as Helena from the music video. Not necessarily the best cat puns I've ever come up with, but in my defense, Helena's lyrics aren't really the best to be made into cat puns to begin with. But this isn't about those cat puns anyway.

The initial sketch is probably what took me the longest here since the character of Helena is supposed to be dead, but I didn't want to lean too dark with the imagery. This led me to Meowlena being in, not a real coffin, and but a coffin-shaped cat bed and lying on her back, sleeping. The death imagery is still there, but the reality isn't quite so grim. The thing is I don't have a ton of experience in drawing cats in poses like this, and the paws/legs can be a little tricky. I spent far longer trying to get the front paw that's slightly at an angle (her left, our right) to look just right, and I'm still not quite sure about any of all four of the legs (though the costume covers up most of the back legs anyway). But I think they're at least close enough that nothing looks unreasonably broken.

Although, in a similar vein, the fit of the dress may not look that awkward here, but it certainly would be in real life. The real Helena dress is strapless, so to be accurate and fit the cat comfortably, the "neckline" would have to be far lower on a cat than it would be on a human, to the point it would look more like a skirt than a dress. Since this is a drawing and I'm not actually making the dress for a cat, I took artistic liberty as necessary to make it look closer to the original. Even though in real life this would probably mean it has tiny cat armholes to fit properly.

And, to be fair, I don't know on what planet you could find a piece of hair netting and ballet slippers for a cat, let alone get the kitty to wear them, so...

I did also have to make some decisions since it's hard for me to tell what exactly the structure is for the bodice of the original dress and I can never seem to find good shots of the bottom of the dress to determine where or how the black lace/tule is handled there. I can find plenty of other fan art to answer these questions, but if you know me, you know I like official sources for this sort of thing for accuracy's sake whenever possible. Still, I went with what seemed right based on what I could find and what works for the drawing/pose, and though it may not be 100% accurate in the end, it gets the job done. The idea of the original dress is conveyed clearly and that's really all that matters.

Speaking of decisions, you'll notice in the music video that Helena is holding a bouquet of roses and is often drawn with such in fan art. Once again, I took artistic liberty here. Meowlena just has the one rose partly because it was easier for me to draw, less crowded for the drawing overall, and in my mind, whether as a toy or a real rose, it seems more realistic a cat would only have the one rose rather than a bouquet. Easier for little kitty mouth and paws to handle.

Also, early on I decided to use a white cat for better contrast with the dress (as opposed to a black cat, which thematically might fit better depending on who you ask) and this would lead me to decide that the inside of the coffin cat bed should be red, also for contrast, even though it's clearly an off-white in the music video. You'll also notice the music video uses a proper casket and not a Halloween-prop-coffin; this is a change I didn't even think about because the coffin shape is more fun to draw and more visually interesting.

While we're on the subject, the coffin-bed may look peculiar for a few different reasons. For one thing, I used a ruler for exactly zero of the lines, and thus they are not straight by any definition. For another, I tried to achieve that look you see with plush satin materials sometimes where the satin has been stuffed a bit and has covered buttons tacking it down at certain intervals. If that description makes any sense at all. I had trouble with that since this is a top-down shot and Meowlena covers up most of the bottom of the coffin where it would be easier to see the effect, but I did the best I could.

And I promise I tried to get some deeper shading to imply depth to the inside of the coffin, and this actually looks maybe a little too harsh in person (the darkest shadows around Meowlena and the coffin edges didn't blend out as nicely as I would've liked) for some reason the scan paled out that darkest red pretty noticeably. At this point, I have to wonder if there's just something particular about my scanner with reddish purple-ish undertones because this certainly isn't the first time it's done this sort of thing, but it is the first time I recall noticing it with this specific color family. Likewise, at some point, I may come back and touch up the dark shadows digitally, but for now I leave it as-is since I don't think it completely ruins the drawing.

For once in my life though, I think the overall coloring went faster because I did two inkings on cheaper paper to warm my hand up before doing the final (one with a brush pen, one with a regular fineliner) and then because I was moving so much more quickly than I expected, I colored in the latter to test out the marker colors I had in mind. It actually turned out pretty nicely, considering it was much cheaper, not-very-nice paper and I was moving quickly so there were some obvious spots where I wasn't careful enough with the brush tip on the markers. And a few minor shading bugs that I tweaked on the final, of course. (Including the fact that I almost completely forgot to shade the shoes on my practice piece. ) It was while working on this piece though that I opted to go for standard gray shading for the white, as opposed to the purple-ish shading I've used in the past. It just felt more fitting for the tone and theme.

The practice piece also gave me a chance to test out what to do for the eyeshadow, which while nonsensical for a cat is part of Helena's iconic look. In a perfect world, I'd have a dark red PanPastel and just use that, but I have no such thing or even a truly dark red regular chalk pastel, so that didn't leave me with a ton of options. I tried one of my darker red Prismacolor pencils blended out a bit with a blending stump, and fortunately, that seemed to do the job to my satisfaction. And actually, it might be a touch more realistic since if you tried putting makeup like this on a cat, it would probably (probably; I'm not going to test it on a real cat) stick to individual pieces of fur and have a more texture, less smoothly blended look like the pencil texture anyway. This pencil also gave me a way to shade the nose since I really didn't want to add another marker to the mix, but I thought the other red markers I had pulled would be too harsh for such a light pink.

With the pencils already out, I also took the liberty of punching up a few spots with the white. Namely some spots in the coffin and the ballet slippers, since both are supposed to be all satin-y and shiny-like. But I didn't want to go too far and not be able to un-do it, so it may arguably be a little too subtle.

I also have to point out that I made sure not to forget the whiskers this time, as while I don't always forget, I have forgotten just often enough to irk myself silly. They blend into the background pretty badly, but they are there!

Additionally, it doesn't show up on the scan at all, but I used a black glitter gel pen to fill in the coffin edge on the final. It just needed that little extra razzle-dazzle and that felt like the best way to include it.

It doesn't always work out this way, but the text I had in mind pretty early on, right after I finished the sketch. And for once I knew roughly what font (or at least what kind) I wanted to use and had a feeling it wouldn't be too hard to come by. Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, the album Helena (and our featured pun) come from uses a typewriter-esque font for "My Chemical Romance" on the front, and that's the font I most strongly associate with that era/album. So it only made sense to use that one. (For the record, if anyone's curious, the font is called "Mom's Typewriter.") Of course, the font had to be added digitally, but I've come to expect that pretty much any time I want to include text in a drawing that doesn't look like my natural handwriting.

I wasn't sure if red or black would be better, but I tried plain red first and it seemed too flat. Black seemed to flat but in the opposite direction. So I opted for this near-black dark red for most of the words. The "for" got to stay red to help differentiate it from "Purrs" since they sit together on top of the coffin, unlike all the other words that get a whole edge to themselves.

Finally, as a finishing touch (other than my watermark), I added a white border to both the coffin and the words so that hopefully the design will show up fully and cleanly across all devices/backgrounds. I knew also pretty early on that I wanted to take the white paper background out, but some websites make transparent backgrounds black and that could cause visibility issues. This way will also work better for use in my RedBubble store for similar reasons, but also because a big square white background isn't a very compelling emblem design.

Overall, it's littered (no pun intended) with flaws, but the whole thing is so darn cute and I find my own puns funny enough that I'm still very happy with it regardless. Plus it was just a nice fun thing to make for Halloween, you know?

What exactly comes next from me, now that Inktober is over (other than my usual wrap-up image), I can't say. I do have some finished art back-logged that I want to post eventually a couple of pieces I stared before Inktober that aren't quite finished yet, but I haven't decided a schedule for what should go or be completed when. And, naturally, I have some projects I haven't even started yet that I'd like to get done before the end of the year, but we'll just have to wait and see how all that goes.

I just hope this doesn't turn out like NaPoWriMo did where I have plans for afterward but they get put on hold by various internal conflicts of mine.

Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings

Where to find me & my artwork:
My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

IMAGE DETAILS

Description
Long ago
Just like the couch you paw to sit on again
We are so far from you
Purring On

Just like the post you scratch to alterate
The lives of everyone you know

And's what's the worst you take
from every vase you break
And like the claws you'll stain
Well I've been holding on tonight

--My Chemical Romeowance, "Meowlena"

Happiest of All Hallows' Eves!!

I am just about cackling at my own puns here, but before I talk about that...

It feels like it's been so long since I was making art like this regularly, as opposed to mini-magnet creations. And that's probably because it really has been quite some time. But! I wanted to squeeze this one in, just in time for Halloween, for a few different reasons. Namely, I know the "2020 Art Summary" is coming up in a couple of months and I would like to no have two mini-magnet pieces on it in a row (since I only submitted practice mini-magnets in September, which I didn't realize at the time), Halloween kinda deserves a special art piece (in my humble opinion), and this Halloween is extra special because it's also the anniversary of My Chemical Romance announcing their Return!

So although I haven't kept up with my "special occasion kitty" drawings I started last fall (in large part due to things I discussed in The Woes of Social Media [Where have I been?] ), somewhere between finishing up Inktober and deciding I wanted to draw something preferably MCR-ish in time for Halloween, it did not take long for pretty much the exact idea you see here to pop into my mind.

This idea did partially come from this "Welcome to The Cat Parade" artwork that floats around the MCR fandom and is admittedly one of my favorites, but beyond that it's also just a culmination of things I like--cats, MCR, the contrast between cute and punk, etc.

Really, it's almost comical how solidly the idea landed in my mind and then how quickly I was able to go from the initial sketch to the final product, especially since it has been quite some time since I've made something like this. It took me one day, which is pretty much unheard of for me, for a full finished drawing. I have no other explanation other than my muse throwing me a bone this time. (Or perhaps to say it threw me some catnip would be better? )

Speaking of cat puns, you may have noticed something a little off about the MCR song quoted at the top of the description. That is the beginning of their song, Helena, adjusted to be more fitting with, well, the cat dressed as Helena from the music video. Not necessarily the best cat puns I've ever come up with, but in my defense, Helena's lyrics aren't really the best to be made into cat puns to begin with. But this isn't about those cat puns anyway.

The initial sketch is probably what took me the longest here since the character of Helena is supposed to be dead, but I didn't want to lean too dark with the imagery. This led me to Meowlena being in, not a real coffin, and but a coffin-shaped cat bed and lying on her back, sleeping. The death imagery is still there, but the reality isn't quite so grim. The thing is I don't have a ton of experience in drawing cats in poses like this, and the paws/legs can be a little tricky. I spent far longer trying to get the front paw that's slightly at an angle (her left, our right) to look just right, and I'm still not quite sure about any of all four of the legs (though the costume covers up most of the back legs anyway). But I think they're at least close enough that nothing looks unreasonably broken.

Although, in a similar vein, the fit of the dress may not look that awkward here, but it certainly would be in real life. The real Helena dress is strapless, so to be accurate and fit the cat comfortably, the "neckline" would have to be far lower on a cat than it would be on a human, to the point it would look more like a skirt than a dress. Since this is a drawing and I'm not actually making the dress for a cat, I took artistic liberty as necessary to make it look closer to the original. Even though in real life this would probably mean it has tiny cat armholes to fit properly.

And, to be fair, I don't know on what planet you could find a piece of hair netting and ballet slippers for a cat, let alone get the kitty to wear them, so...

I did also have to make some decisions since it's hard for me to tell what exactly the structure is for the bodice of the original dress and I can never seem to find good shots of the bottom of the dress to determine where or how the black lace/tule is handled there. I can find plenty of other fan art to answer these questions, but if you know me, you know I like official sources for this sort of thing for accuracy's sake whenever possible. Still, I went with what seemed right based on what I could find and what works for the drawing/pose, and though it may not be 100% accurate in the end, it gets the job done. The idea of the original dress is conveyed clearly and that's really all that matters.

Speaking of decisions, you'll notice in the music video that Helena is holding a bouquet of roses and is often drawn with such in fan art. Once again, I took artistic liberty here. Meowlena just has the one rose partly because it was easier for me to draw, less crowded for the drawing overall, and in my mind, whether as a toy or a real rose, it seems more realistic a cat would only have the one rose rather than a bouquet. Easier for little kitty mouth and paws to handle.

Also, early on I decided to use a white cat for better contrast with the dress (as opposed to a black cat, which thematically might fit better depending on who you ask) and this would lead me to decide that the inside of the coffin cat bed should be red, also for contrast, even though it's clearly an off-white in the music video. You'll also notice the music video uses a proper casket and not a Halloween-prop-coffin; this is a change I didn't even think about because the coffin shape is more fun to draw and more visually interesting.

While we're on the subject, the coffin-bed may look peculiar for a few different reasons. For one thing, I used a ruler for exactly zero of the lines, and thus they are not straight by any definition. For another, I tried to achieve that look you see with plush satin materials sometimes where the satin has been stuffed a bit and has covered buttons tacking it down at certain intervals. If that description makes any sense at all. I had trouble with that since this is a top-down shot and Meowlena covers up most of the bottom of the coffin where it would be easier to see the effect, but I did the best I could.

And I promise I tried to get some deeper shading to imply depth to the inside of the coffin, and this actually looks maybe a little too harsh in person (the darkest shadows around Meowlena and the coffin edges didn't blend out as nicely as I would've liked) for some reason the scan paled out that darkest red pretty noticeably. At this point, I have to wonder if there's just something particular about my scanner with reddish purple-ish undertones because this certainly isn't the first time it's done this sort of thing, but it is the first time I recall noticing it with this specific color family. Likewise, at some point, I may come back and touch up the dark shadows digitally, but for now I leave it as-is since I don't think it completely ruins the drawing.

For once in my life though, I think the overall coloring went faster because I did two inkings on cheaper paper to warm my hand up before doing the final (one with a brush pen, one with a regular fineliner) and then because I was moving so much more quickly than I expected, I colored in the latter to test out the marker colors I had in mind. It actually turned out pretty nicely, considering it was much cheaper, not-very-nice paper and I was moving quickly so there were some obvious spots where I wasn't careful enough with the brush tip on the markers. And a few minor shading bugs that I tweaked on the final, of course. (Including the fact that I almost completely forgot to shade the shoes on my practice piece. ) It was while working on this piece though that I opted to go for standard gray shading for the white, as opposed to the purple-ish shading I've used in the past. It just felt more fitting for the tone and theme.

The practice piece also gave me a chance to test out what to do for the eyeshadow, which while nonsensical for a cat is part of Helena's iconic look. In a perfect world, I'd have a dark red PanPastel and just use that, but I have no such thing or even a truly dark red regular chalk pastel, so that didn't leave me with a ton of options. I tried one of my darker red Prismacolor pencils blended out a bit with a blending stump, and fortunately, that seemed to do the job to my satisfaction. And actually, it might be a touch more realistic since if you tried putting makeup like this on a cat, it would probably (probably; I'm not going to test it on a real cat) stick to individual pieces of fur and have a more texture, less smoothly blended look like the pencil texture anyway. This pencil also gave me a way to shade the nose since I really didn't want to add another marker to the mix, but I thought the other red markers I had pulled would be too harsh for such a light pink.

With the pencils already out, I also took the liberty of punching up a few spots with the white. Namely some spots in the coffin and the ballet slippers, since both are supposed to be all satin-y and shiny-like. But I didn't want to go too far and not be able to un-do it, so it may arguably be a little too subtle.

I also have to point out that I made sure not to forget the whiskers this time, as while I don't always forget, I have forgotten just often enough to irk myself silly. They blend into the background pretty badly, but they are there!

Additionally, it doesn't show up on the scan at all, but I used a black glitter gel pen to fill in the coffin edge on the final. It just needed that little extra razzle-dazzle and that felt like the best way to include it.

It doesn't always work out this way, but the text I had in mind pretty early on, right after I finished the sketch. And for once I knew roughly what font (or at least what kind) I wanted to use and had a feeling it wouldn't be too hard to come by. Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, the album Helena (and our featured pun) come from uses a typewriter-esque font for "My Chemical Romance" on the front, and that's the font I most strongly associate with that era/album. So it only made sense to use that one. (For the record, if anyone's curious, the font is called "Mom's Typewriter.") Of course, the font had to be added digitally, but I've come to expect that pretty much any time I want to include text in a drawing that doesn't look like my natural handwriting.

I wasn't sure if red or black would be better, but I tried plain red first and it seemed too flat. Black seemed to flat but in the opposite direction. So I opted for this near-black dark red for most of the words. The "for" got to stay red to help differentiate it from "Purrs" since they sit together on top of the coffin, unlike all the other words that get a whole edge to themselves.

Finally, as a finishing touch (other than my watermark), I added a white border to both the coffin and the words so that hopefully the design will show up fully and cleanly across all devices/backgrounds. I knew also pretty early on that I wanted to take the white paper background out, but some websites make transparent backgrounds black and that could cause visibility issues. This way will also work better for use in my RedBubble store for similar reasons, but also because a big square white background isn't a very compelling emblem design.

Overall, it's littered (no pun intended) with flaws, but the whole thing is so darn cute and I find my own puns funny enough that I'm still very happy with it regardless. Plus it was just a nice fun thing to make for Halloween, you know?

What exactly comes next from me, now that Inktober is over (other than my usual wrap-up image), I can't say. I do have some finished art back-logged that I want to post eventually a couple of pieces I stared before Inktober that aren't quite finished yet, but I haven't decided a schedule for what should go or be completed when. And, naturally, I have some projects I haven't even started yet that I'd like to get done before the end of the year, but we'll just have to wait and see how all that goes.

I just hope this doesn't turn out like NaPoWriMo did where I have plans for afterward but they get put on hold by various internal conflicts of mine.

Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings

Where to find me & my artwork:
My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

IMAGE DETAILS