Qwertee - Princess & The Pea

        After revisiting the pen and ink style which I began to develop whilst on my foundation course, I was reminded of how much I enjoy the intricate drawing process, regardless of how laborious it may be. I had previously worked in this fashion to produce illustrations for Roald Dahl's My Uncle Oswald in a Victorian/Edwardian fashion. This is one of my favourite styles of illustration, particularly due to its association with classics and fairy tales.

        So why not combine this style of drawing with another recurring theme of Qwertee: cats (a perennial favourite of the internet). I was struck with the inspiration for this idea whilst watching my cat attempt to go to sleep. She was seated on a large pile of cushions and blankets, yet kept shuffling around as though she couldn't get comfortable. I was immediately reminded of the story of The Princess & The Pea, and a particular illustration I remembered, depicting the princess in a four poster bed atop an array of colourful mattresses.

        I chose to base my third design on this illustration, replacing the princess with a cat, but keeping the luxurious aesthetic. Another aspect I was keen to incorporate was a decorative border, as often seen in traditional illustrations. However, there was one small drawback to this decision. Unless I wished to draw the decorative border and the over sized bed on a vast scale, then the cat would have to be drawn very small, making it near impossible to achieve the level of detail in the rest of the scene.

I attempted to give the cat the same
disgruntled/displeased expression often worn
by my own cat.

        My solution was to draw the scene and the cat separately, before combining the two together. This seemed like a simple and effective plan, but in my haste I forgot one crucial aspect. When I drew the cat, I used the same thickness of pen as for the border and bed, meaning that once the cat image was scaled down, the line would be markedly finer, bordering on invisible, making the cat recede into the background. To rectify this problem and attempt to get the thickness of line to match, I used Photoshop to adjust the brightness and contrast of the cat, allowing most of the finer details to show through and not be overshadowed.

        While I would have liked to draw the image as a whole, I am not displeased with the result. I feel that there is no notable difference between the cat and her surroundings, and indeed am happy with how the design looks when applied to the t shirt template. Although it is quite different to the majority of successful Qwertee designs (not having any obvious pop culture references), I am optimistic that some may find it appealing.