This is Paper Napkin, he is a cat. He is fat. He is a ‘drooler.’ I love him, and my friends love him… so much that he has become an icon. He appears on news feeds, celebrates his birthday on April Fool’s Day, and is the subject of the yearly birthday card for my friend LR.
This year the theme was a kind of locket that held portraits two important pets; Napkin, and Riley. Riley is a giant otter chocolate lab and senior citizen, with an unsinkable heart of gold.
Per my usual I was going to take this sketch and recreate it with card stock.. but I decided that I rather liked my sketch and opted to ink and color the fuzzy, fat bastard.
Upon finishing the portrait, I think that was a rather good idea. He looks so damn dapper, and handsome. You’d never think that this fellow would attempt to eat you out of house and home at every opportunity.
Next was Riley, she needed to be more feminine and pretty… and who doesn’t want to draw eyelashes on a dog? I mean, really… it’s adorable.
She got the same treatment as Naps, but with a few added gold paint details and Swarovski jewels.
She makes a lovely little Victorian lady.
I did want the characters to really pop on the backgrounds, so I cut them out and overlayed them with a small folded piece of paper glued under the head for depth. I like the shadow it creates. I’m not great at drawing shadow, so I feel like this is kind of a cheat.
So there you go, another year of LR bday card nonsense out of the way… but what about next year?
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