Evolution of the Cat

2016 – Arya and Tilly

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2017 – Percy

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2018 – Labyrinth

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2019 – Trixie and Mia (COMING SOON)

Over the past 3 years, I have created a cat portrait per year, and have already planned another which will be a commisioned piece at the start of next year, for my boyfriend or his family.

As the pieces have had some time between one another, I feel you can somewhat see the growth of my style from piece to piece, so I wanted to show that within my blog. In the first, I was starting to use a cel-shading method a lot in my work and this piece was quite experimental, as I still wanted to use the style, but did not want the cats to look flat, so decided to play around with some textured brushes. In the second piece, I have used a similar method to colour, but I feel it does look a lot softer, and I have built up separate layers of colour as to give the cat a fluffier appearance.

Now, looking at the illustration I have recently created, I feel as I have been experimenting more with digital painting, and I have been inspired by artists such as Ana Godis, following her process etc, in this design, I have moved away from the cel-shading style, creating a more blended and somewhat more realistic illustration. By doing this technique, I don’t want my work to become too airbrushed which is how I feel a lot of digital paintings can look, so to try battle this, I tried to use brushes that would give the design texture and could give it a more realistic look, as opposed to looking too smooth and somewhat flat.

I like being able to see all of these illustrations together as I feel they do show my progression within my work. I feel since they are all cats, you are able to see my skill development better, but since they are different types of cats, some with shorter hair, some with long and each with their own individual patterns, you can somewhat see my thought process, what methods I may have used to give the impression of the length of their fur as I have made each of them unique in themselves, I have not just stuck to one formula of ‘THIS IS THE METHOD YOU HAVE TO USE’ I have experimented with each of the cats/designs.

Although I plan to start working on the next illustration on the 15th of January, the day after my deadline, and that is not too far off the time that I have created my most recent piece, I am excited to experiment with the new cats, seeing how best to create their fur, patterns and feature etc.

If you are reading this blog, and like my work, and you do have your own pets or know someone who might want an illustration of theirs, feel free to comment down below, or contact me through Instagram @Melon.r. My college timetable may be an issue, but I would be willing to work with you, to figure out a timeslot, if you were to commision me.

Melon and Lime Comics – MERRY CHRISTMAS!

This post has came a little later than we usually post, but that’s because IT’S CHRIIIISTMAS! Myself and Liam both celebrate this holiday and as a comic, I wanted to create a Christmas card inspired piece, but one that was inspired by the ones American families take, that just make you cringe.

I decided this comic would be a surprise for Liam, as I wanted to make it for him more than anyone else, as this was initially just comics between me and him but has become more open to the public so that they can also relate, as we have posted them on social media. But for Christmas, I wanted to make something special for him, but could also be posted on our Instagram.

So, I have created a cringey Christmas card style comic, which includes all members of our little family, Liam, myself, Arya, Tilly and Wednesday, and I have positioned each of the characters in the composition similar to an image I had found.

I believe the inspiration for this piece had actually come from a photo of Will Ferrel, search ‘Will Ferrell photo’ on google and you will see the image I’m referencing, who in no way looked festive, but I believe it is where the idea for the style had come from.

As this is a festive piece, I had designed the comic in two ways, one with the usual black and white colour palette, and one with a pop of red for the Christmas jumpers and collars the characters and animals are wearing.

I do love this design as it is very much us and our little family. I feel like it is a good way to celebrate the holidays through our comics, no matter what you celebrate. Although we don’t send out cards, I feel if we did, they would be like this. If I could change anything, I would possibly make the background less dark so that Wednesday would be more visible, however, I partially like the idea of him being as black as the night.

If you enjoy this comic and would like to see more of our work, feel free to have a look at our Instagram page @MelonandLimeComics. We hope you enjoy and we wish you a very Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays, from our family to yours!

Melon and Lime Comics – Meet Arya!

Following from last weeks comic, ‘Meeting Tilly’, we had wanted to introduce our other cat, Arya.

When coming up with a concept for this comic, we had so many different stories about Arya and her typical habits, so instead of just focusing on one story (as we had done for Tilly) we decided to incorporate all of our ideas into one, working in a similar style as to the comic we had created based on mine and Liam’s ‘Artist Quirks’ when that subject was trending amongst the artist community on Instagram.

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Although I did not have many technical difficulties with this comic, I believe because they were all designed on one page and opposed to designing the frames one by one which would be on a bigger scale, looking at the piece now, I do think I should have made the text within the frames bigger, so that they could be more readable. So this will be something that I will consider more in future comics.

If you enjoy this comic and would like to see more of our work, feel free to have a look at our Instagram page @MelonandLimeComics. We hope you enjoy!

Melon and Lime Comics – Meet Tilly!

Back again with a new comic!

This one is about Liam’s cat named Tilly, who I have practically adopted since first ever meeting her, seeing that she OBVIOUSLY loves me more!

Me and Liam were talking about the comics and how Wednesday (my kitten) has been a main character in most of the comics so far, but Liam also has two other cats that live in his room, who I also class as my children, so we wanted to introduce these characters into our comics too. This week we decided to start with Tilly.

Tilly is the type of cat that you have to be patient with, she pretty much hates everyone, including me when we first met (she’d just run and hide from me), but once she got to know me better, and I learned more about her tendencies, she let me cuddle her (at her specific times only) and has ended up sleeping on me most nights.

Liam and Tilly, on the other hand, have more of a love-hate relationship, I guess because he has to live with her all the time, and I’m just blinded by heart goggles, but she tends to do things that anger him more, such as jumping onto his PC, knocking things over, etc, but I seem to be more patient with her, which is why I believe she loves me more, other than the fact I feed her meat.

So, me and Liam had wanted to express this relationship and introduce Tilly into our comics, and to our audience, expressing her personality as best as we could.

I did have similar struggles when it came to producing these comics as I had last week, (i.e. my computer running slower, especially when it came to colouring) but since I knew this would be an issue again, I was somewhat more prepared, in the sense that I knew what was to come, so I would say that I got slightly less stressed than I had in the previous week.

If you are enjoying our comics and would like to see more, please check out our Instagram @Melonandlimecomics. We do hope to make and post at least one comic per week. We hope you enjoy!