SQUIRREL

Running super late with these cameos just like with everything else, I AM SO SORRY x_x

@artwatch requested a black kitten/otter hybrid that was more kitten than otter.  I immediately dubbed it "kittotten" and did a couple of initial sketchies, erased them all, started on another, and got distracted for literal months.

Yesterday I finally got back to it (I've lost track of days since soft lockdown first started and basically only know when it's a weekday or a weekend, I am trying to remember to check more often x_x) and after a couple more fails which got scrubbed suddenly ended up with something I could work with.

I'm not sure why I made it so long, maybe I just got ferrets on the brain because they're both mustelids.  It originally had pointy ears but I made them rounder so I didn't have quite as much cat (I know she said more cat than otter but I was trying to keep some otter), and it also has a thick otter tail, which I made as long as a cat's tail.  While I ended up deciding to keep digitigrade toes, it has more webbing than usual between them.  I thought I'd made the legs really thick like an otter's legs as well but after looking at 15yo's chunky male  cat I don't think that's the case XD

Tried inking with the chroma and leaky pen brushes as they were fun to play with and did actually give me an interesting look but not quite what I wanted.

I managed to forget again that my gpen doesn't work how it did in the previous version of Krita.  Got more or less what I wanted with the rough ink brush, wondered why I was trying to do nice lineart for sketchies and then decided I probably just wanted the weighted line practice because I haven't done that forever.  Next sketchy will most likely have sketchy lines.  Probably with chroma or leaky pen.

Then it got embiggenated and coloured.

I still find it really difficult to shade things that are too close to black and white x_x

Also actually succeeded in switching to an 8bit colour profile without the image exploding like it was doing in a previous version so I was able to save out a decent jpg for a change.  I'll probably have to version it though as a pile of colour information was lost in the process and I had to do a bit of touching to blend some bits that had developed sharp transition lines.  Least I won't have to go via gimp now as that was an extra step I didn't want.

Kittotten will probably end up with an actual name at some point and I'm thinking it will probably end up being Taji and Rei's pet.  The pose is probably the result of being called in for bath and dinner which are probably a kittotten's favourite things.