A Second Try on an Abyssinian Cat

My recent charcoals finished, I turned once again to my revisions for The Book of Marvelous Cats. The latest revision was the illustration for Abby Sinian. The original was a cat rendered from a vision in my head. Such visions generally not being very accurate, I decided to look at the Abyssinian breed to get a better idea about the cat’s actual form. Amazing ears on those cats! For the background in this drawing I consulted an old college art history textbook for details from Assyrian architecture.

I found halfway through my drawing that I was using the rough, textured side of the paper rather than the smooth side that I had been typically using for these illustrations. This helped reduce glare when scanning the image, but the tooth on the paper made for a soft textured finish rather than the crisp linear look that I had favored. I hope this means that I don’t have to do the entire thing over again for consistency. For now I’m going with the softer look. I’ve reproduced the finished illustration above along with the original version for comparison. I hope it inspires a budding artist/student/illustrator to always try something a second time.