#primenumber — Public Fediverse posts

Charlie and George: In their prime!

Today Charlie and George are seven years old. A prime birthday for kitties very much approaching their prime. Compared to the tiny little rescue beasties we first met they are monstrously large, magnificently mighty, and hugely handsome. Biased? Not at all!

I’ve posted many (many!) photos of these two over the years (for some examples, go read previous Kitten Reports, or just search under Charlie and George, or go read my Instagram or Bluesky accounts—more Charlie and George pictures than anyone (except their besotted staff) could possibly want).

So today I’ve gathered up a selection of my sketches, starting with my very first attempts—when I got my very first iPad with Pencil. They seemed as good a subject as any to experiment with. How old are they here? Honestly, I don’t know, but I’m guessing about two.

After a couple of weeks I got a bit better, figuring out how to (sort of) use (some) brushes on Procreate. This was when I discovered that Charlie had a gift I had hoped to never encounter again: the Paw of Permanent Delete. Two decades ago, this was a gift his forebear, Zack, had—with audio files. I’d spend an hour perfecting a reading from, say, Stay, only for Zack to trundle across the keyboard and just…erase everything. I don’t mean ‘erase to the most recent backup’, I mean make it unexist, as though I’d lived an hour in another universe. It was only ever audio files; never text or images. Sadly for me, Charlie has that gift—though only with Photoshop, and only on my iPad. Thankfully, at some point and some software update, his Paw was rendered inactive.

(Ah. He just opened his eyes, gave me a lazy yawn, a knowing blink, and a look that clearly said, That’s what you think…)

Anyway, after several traumatic days of work loss, I set my iPad and Pencil aside for a while—until I started working hard on maps for Menewood. But for whatever reason he wasn’t keen on those, so they (mostly) stayed safe.

But about a year ago I started to experiment with I call my Zoomorphics—copying and/or adapting the beautiful animal imagery of Early Medieval Britain, sometimes from their jewellery, sometimes from sculpture, and sometimes from il.uminated manuscripts, most often the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Book of Kells.

I never liked the Early Medieval versions of cats (see this one, or this one) so I decided to try my hand at Charlie and George, seventh-century style. In case you can’t really tell which is which—I don’t blame you!—on the left is eorge curled up asleep with his eyes open, and on the right Charlie crouched to pounce on a catnip mouse.

Those feel a bit, well, jazzy to me (not to mention that George’s hindquarters look disconcertingly like a large ham)—though I have to say the picture of Charlie does capture some of that coiled-to-spring energy that is such a part of him.

Anyway, it was at this point that I started to really focus on how to adapt realistic-looking animal poses to Early Medieval artistic styles—and now I’m talking specifically a) the Lindisfarne Gospels (whose scribe had a wonderfully fluid style that I admire enormously—s/he was particularly gifted when it comes to animal heads: see, for example, George’s head above, and then a bit further down; lifted whole cloth from Lindisfarne) and b) the early pre-Christian Pictish Stones. The Pictish carvers could do realism quite well—but only if that animal was very statically posed. I had to learn make a lot of mistakes before I could figure out how to adapt a blend of Lindisfarne and Pictish styles to start to create my own.

Here’s a purely Lindisfarne image of a young—six months old, maybe—George just waking from one of those sudden kittenish naps, and here’s Charlie, taken from a photo last year, at the height of his summer weight and muscle, looking more like a 90-lb cougar than a 9-lb tabby. There’s something about Charlie facial expressions that make him much harder to draw in adapted medieval style; even that wonderful Lindisfarne scribe couldn’t catch our beastie’s Resting Demon Face.

And, just for a change, here’s a picture of George when he’s not asleep, or just waking up. This is from a photo taken a year or two ago of him stalking a leaf. And here is Charlie looking sweet as pie, as though butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. I forget what photo I used as a reference for this, though honestly it’s such a typical pose for him it could have been on of scores.

In the end what I’m trying to get at isi that Charlie and George are both now fully themselves. Their personalities have found their permanent form. That doesn’t mean they’re not growing and changing—they learn, absorb, and adapt all the time—but that they are distinct, and only growing more so as they gather experience and shape it around them.

George is still our kitty engineer—studying things carefully to work out the parameters and mechanism of action before engaging; after all, life is good and risk exists to be reduced to ensure continuing success. Charlie is still our, What’s that? Charge! knight in shining fur who will assume he is big enough to tackle anything and, after all, the world is his plaything.

They are both, of course, right. Kelley and I are honoured to host their magnificence and serve their needs as long as they’ll let us. We hope it will be many, many more years.

Charlie and George: In their prime!

Today Charlie and George are seven years old. A prime birthday for kitties very much approaching their prime. Compared to the tiny little rescue beasties we first met they are monstrously large, magnificently mighty, and hugely handsome. Biased? Not at all!

I’ve posted many (many!) photos of these two over the years (for some examples, go read previous Kitten Reports, or just search under Charlie and George, or go read my Instagram or Bluesky accounts—more Charlie and George pictures than anyone (except their besotted staff) could possibly want).

So today I’ve gathered up a selection of my sketches, starting with my very first attempts—when I got my very first iPad with Pencil. They seemed as good a subject as any to experiment with. How old are they here? Honestly, I don’t know, but I’m guessing about two.

After a couple of weeks I got a bit better, figuring out how to (sort of) use (some) brushes on Procreate. This was when I discovered that Charlie had a gift I had hoped to never encounter again: the Paw of Permanent Delete. Two decades ago, this was a gift his forebear, Zack, had—with audio files. I’d spend an hour perfecting a reading from, say, Stay, only for Zack to trundle across the keyboard and just…erase everything. I don’t mean ‘erase to the most recent backup’, I mean make it unexist, as though I’d lived an hour in another universe. It was only ever audio files; never text or images. Sadly for me, Charlie has that gift—though only with Photoshop, and only on my iPad. Thankfully, at some point and some software update, his Paw was rendered inactive.

(Ah. He just opened his eyes, gave me a lazy yawn, a knowing blink, and a look that clearly said, That’s what you think…)

Anyway, after several traumatic days of work loss, I set my iPad and Pencil aside for a while—until I started working hard on maps for Menewood. But for whatever reason he wasn’t keen on those, so they (mostly) stayed safe.

But about a year ago I started to experiment with I call my Zoomorphics—copying and/or adapting the beautiful animal imagery of Early Medieval Britain, sometimes from their jewellery, sometimes from sculpture, and sometimes from il.uminated manuscripts, most often the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Book of Kells.

I never liked the Early Medieval versions of cats (see this one, or this one) so I decided to try my hand at Charlie and George, seventh-century style. In case you can’t really tell which is which—I don’t blame you!—on the left is eorge curled up asleep with his eyes open, and on the right Charlie crouched to pounce on a catnip mouse.

Those feel a bit, well, jazzy to me (not to mention that George’s hindquarters look disconcertingly like a large ham)—though I have to say the picture of Charlie does capture some of that coiled-to-spring energy that is such a part of him.

Anyway, it was at this point that I started to really focus on how to adapt realistic-looking animal poses to Early Medieval artistic styles—and now I’m talking specifically a) the Lindisfarne Gospels (whose scribe had a wonderfully fluid style that I admire enormously—s/he was particularly gifted when it comes to animal heads: see, for example, George’s head above, and then a bit further down; lifted whole cloth from Lindisfarne) and b) the early pre-Christian Pictish Stones. The Pictish carvers could do realism quite well—but only if that animal was very statically posed. I had to learn make a lot of mistakes before I could figure out how to adapt a blend of Lindisfarne and Pictish styles to start to create my own.

Here’s a purely Lindisfarne image of a young—six months old, maybe—George just waking from one of those sudden kittenish naps, and here’s Charlie, taken from a photo last year, at the height of his summer weight and muscle, looking more like a 90-lb cougar than a 9-lb tabby. There’s something about Charlie facial expressions that make him much harder to draw in adapted medieval style; even that wonderful Lindisfarne scribe couldn’t catch our beastie’s Resting Demon Face.

And, just for a change, here’s a picture of George when he’s not asleep, or just waking up. This is from a photo taken a year or two ago of him stalking a leaf. And here is Charlie looking sweet as pie, as though butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. I forget what photo I used as a reference for this, though honestly it’s such a typical pose for him it could have been on of scores.

In the end what I’m trying to get at isi that Charlie and George are both now fully themselves. Their personalities have found their permanent form. That doesn’t mean they’re not growing and changing—they learn, absorb, and adapt all the time—but that they are distinct, and only growing more so as they gather experience and shape it around them.

George is still our kitty engineer—studying things carefully to work out the parameters and mechanism of action before engaging; after all, life is good and risk exists to be reduced to ensure continuing success. Charlie is still our, What’s that? Charge! knight in shining fur who will assume he is big enough to tackle anything and, after all, the world is his plaything.

They are both, of course, right. Kelley and I are honoured to host their magnificence and serve their needs as long as they’ll let us. We hope it will be many, many more years.