This is the month of Easter, there should have been eggs and bunnies and spring themed things, shouldn’t there? No, I did that earlier, I planned ahead. It’s a rare and wonderful thing that I sometimes do.

Because of the cat overload last month, I decided that there would be none this month. All the little cat images that involuntarily spring to the front of my mind must be quickly dismissed or drawn and secreted away so no one can tell I’m still thinking about drawing stupid little cartoon cats. At least, that was the plan.

This month, there were food themed designs. I have a feeling that only one of these designs might actually make you feel hunger in some way, but not in a way that I would want to encourage. Sorry about that. Also, a naughty little cat sneaked its way in. I don’t know how it happened.

Eyes Cream

I reckon April’s all about the ice cream trucks coming out of hiding. In the afternoon and on the weekends, you hear the ice cream vans playing their little tunes and you just know the weather is good without having to look out the window. So, the first design of this month was an “ice cream” design.

Originally, I posted this little clue for my weekly design:

👀 + 😱 = ?

But then I changed my mind. There would be eyes, but making them scream was difficult. I wanted them to have big, gaping mouths and somehow have this look of desperation on their little eyeball faces. Turns out it’s difficult to make an eyeball look expressive without eyelids. I suppose I could have squished them into expressive shapes, but then they wouldn’t have looked as much like round globs of ice cream.

So, instead of “Eyes Scream”, we have “Eyes Cream”. The post should have looked like this:

👀 + [apparently non-existent cream emoji] = ?

I really like drawing eyes and my favourite part of them is probably the iris. But the fine lines and intricate details that make an iris look so beautiful don’t match the style of this design. So, I did a more cartoony version of the iris. If this doesn’t look appetising, just imagine that the main bulk of the eyeball is Cornish clotted cream ice cream and the iris of each eyeball is some kind of sweet sorbet in a fruity flavour. Is your mouth watering yet?

I imagine that to watch someone licking their ice cream while wearing this “Eyes Cream” t-shirt might elicit mixed feelings.

The Best Hamster Flavours

I don’t want to encourage anybody to go and eat their pet hamster now, but hamsters are not only conveniently bite sized, but also commonly the victims of cute aggression. I understand that despite all discouragement to pop a hamster in your mouth, the temptation may persist, but this design is certainly not intended to encourage the behaviour.

I decided I wanted to make this design with hamsters in all sorts of poses with different fur patterns, which you could liken to different flavours. After doing a little bit of research, I discovered that hamster fur patterns and colours were already named after foods. The official names for their fur colours are edible things. Not just edible, but usually sweet and delicious. Although I like the idea, I do worry for the hamsters. How would you feel if aliens came to Earth and named us after their favourite foods…

Besides this, I wanted the design to be cute and fun. As I was doing the outlines for these little guys, I did get the feeling that they could easily be mistaken for cats, especially since I initially gave them pointed ears. They all looked like chubby cats with stubby tails to me. To make them look more like hamsters, I gave some of them the distinctive two front teeth that rodents have and rounded their ears. I don’t know if hamster enthusiasts would approve of this shirt design after reading the names I gave the hamsters.

Someone mentioned that the rabbits I did earlier this year looked soulless until I added the shine to their eyes. I almost forgot to give these hamsters their souls, but that comment helped remind me. Adding the soul to a character is like adding salt to a dish, it has to be done last.

This one also comes as a mug.

Night Time is Nom Nom Time

After making two food themed designs, this is the point at which I thought I’d relieve myself of the mental effort required to think of a completely new topic for the next design and just keep all the designs this month food related. Sometimes, narrowing down your options makes things easier. When people tell you things like, “The world is your oyster” or “Your imagination is the limit”, they’re just handing you a dose of decision paralysis. In moments like this, you’re better off correcting the idea with something along the lines of, “I’m limited by the things I am skilled at doing and most motivated to do”. And although my strongest skill is certainly not drawing, I drew a raccoon because, for a moment, I had some motivation to go and do that.

I don’t midnight snack, but I live with people who midnight snack. It’s annoying. It’s noisy. It’s disruptive. Maybe I’m also a little jealous of how their stomachs are somehow able to cope with food so late at night, while it would completely mess up my sleep. I think this design should go on pyjamas, or a nice loose shirt you can wear as pyjamas.

Since I don’t have very much time to get this design out, it is not beautifully detailed with glossy fur lines and shades that better describe the light on my subject. This is more a vector style drawing but with pretty green eyes.

One of the reasons I tend to write out words instead of just typing them in with a popular or fancy font is that I’m terrified I’m going to accidentally use a font that I think I can use without needing a license, only to find that I really did need to pay for a license and now owe someone money. So, the accompanying text has been written in my most beautiful handwriting. I hope you like it. It took a long time to write those six words exactly as I wanted them.

Cat Goes Mew

I was really strapped for time this week, so I just made the first design that came to mind. I had that song in my head, What Does The Fox Say?. And I was also thinking about how some people spell “meow” as “mew”, and how the word “mew” has become a verb. And there you have it, the cat has been drawn. I almost managed a whole cat-free month. Almost.

I must admit, I don’t know all that much about “Chads”, “Gigachads” and “Sigmas”, so I like to think of this as just a cat with a human-like jawline and well defined eyebrows. I reckon most cats naturally have good tongue posture. The ones that leave their tongues permanently hanging out of their mouths definitely do not. They are not Chad cats.

Simple line drawings can sometimes make for really attractive and catchy designs. This is not one of them. But I tried. This cat has been mewing properly, you can tell because his jawline is pronounced and symmetrical. This cat wants to look trendy, so he is carrying a confident and intriguing expression on his face. I think he has everything that is required of him. Who would wear this kind of shirt? I think this is something that might amuse a Gen Zer.  

So Hangry

This was not supposed to be the design I published for the last week of April. On Monday, I thought, “I’m going to draw a wendigo”, so I posted something about how the design was related to insatiable hunger on social media. But the style I planned ended up taking longer than I had time for. This is how far I got with the wendigo (distant future spoiler alert).

After realising I had so much work to do that I would have barely any time left for art, I thought, “I’m going to do the wendigo later”. So, I did something else. Something quick and simple, but which didn’t deviate from the planned topic of hunger. Here, we have a little orange bubble person who is hangry. I have heard that red, yellow and orange are colours that make people hungry. I’m not sure if this is because these are the colours chosen for logos by many fast food chains, or if they chose those colours because some other source said those colours make people hungry. Either way, this is the hangry little guy who might make you feel hungry. I personally think he would have a better chance at making people feel hungry if he looked like some kind of food.

I am contemplating putting more details in his mouth, just to draw a bit more attention to it, but this is how he is as of now. His eyes are a bit wonky. This is completely deliberate. I was going to make them even more wonky, just to emphasise how emotionally turbulent he was feeling due to his hangriness, but I think he looks better with this level of cockeyedness. I imagine that this t-shirt would be a great gift for the hangry people, so we can identify them easily and feed them. If you are a hangry person, I highly recommend this shirt design.

 

I almost succeeded in completely abstaining from cat drawings this month. No promises that they won’t show up next month. I haven’t chosen a theme for next month and don’t know if I will. I hope your April was as delightful as mine.