Out For a Stroll

Once more I'm practicing doing more simplistic/minimalistic manga.

I probably SHOULDN'T tell the story of WHERE the idea for this came from, 'cause it'll make the drawing totally lose it's cool factor, but oh well. (P.S. I'll probably be selling the lineart for this on my website sometime soon)

Ever since I got my two kittens people have been striking me with a paranoia I've never experienced before. Suddenly EVERYONE is telling me "OMG YOU CAN'T LET CATS OUTSIDE!!!1 THEY'LL DIE ZOMG!!1" and I'm like "AHH!? AHHH!!!! Since when!?".

See, I've had cats literally my entire life. My mom and dad had a cat when I was born and we've had cat after cat ever since. We've always let cats just go outdoors at their leisure, not forcing them out or kicking them out for the night. If they wanna go out, they go out, if they wanna stay in they stay in. Seems logical to me. And I've never lost a single one.

Now I'm hearing "oh god coyotes! Fisher cats! (which there aren't any in my area, really)" and the usual, CARS! MEAN NEIGHBORS! GANGS OF KIDS WITH BEEBEES! KEEP THE PRECIOUS FELINES INDOORS! Even the place I adopted them from kinda told me I had to keep them indoor cats. So yeah, according to everybody and their brother domestic cats suddenly can't take care of themselves. And I missed the memo.

So now I'm all paranoid, I'm even considering putting collars on them incase someone thinks they're strays and does whatever to them (I've never put collars on cats either ), as I still don't want to deprive them of going outdoors and I have to decide what to do after they get fixed and get distemper shots. So a few days ago I was out having fish and chips with my mom and grandparents and my grandmother said one of her friends lets HER cat go outside, but keeps it tied up in the yard on a leash harness this is how bizarre this ZOMG DOMESTIC CATS ARE HELPLESS thing has gotten.

So the other day I was joking to mom about walking them around outside on leashes. And she made some crack about how would I look walking two black cats down the street. Then I started cracking up and said I SHOULD, and I should do it dressed all gothed out.

And that's how this drawing came to be. But this is actually meant to be more weirdly elegant than anything. ... oh the conversations we have around here. P.S. This girl is NOT me. Well.. maybe if I was skinny, 6 feet tall, and a gothic lolita.

It's under traditional because I BARELY put any digi tones on it, and the drawing itself is as always india ink on bristol. Though this time around I was playing around with Manga Studio Debut which I bought a download of recently. It works alot like ComicWorks, but it's got a few advantages over it. For one, it's half the price (only $50). Second, it has a precious precious polygon lasso (VERY useful for tones). I didn't think you could resize the tones at first but you can (you can do it after you "paste" them which is a little weird but works fine). And third it's got guidelines for various comic page sizes and 1,800 screentones. So yeah, worth your money.