Ratha at Dawn

Edit: SQUEE! This won third place!! Many thanks to everyone who voted! And the most gratitude goes to ~rathacat who wrote the wonderful Named books for us all to enjoy!

Ratha finds solace from her cares in the soothing presence of her treeling (the lemur), Ratharee. I like the way the little treelings soothe the restless tendencies of the Named cats. What is Ratharee doing? I think she has found a tick. Tasty!

This is my entry for the Ratha Fan Art contest. [link] I am so glad I found out about it thanks to =KaiserTiger. Ratha's Creature and the other Books of the Named were some of my favorites when I was in middle school and had a big influence on me! The grand prize is a T-shirt plus the whole series, autographed and "kitty doodled" by the author herself, Clare Bell!

Besides just being awesome and exciting stories about intelligent prehistoric cats, the books are thought-provoking and inspiring. They go deeper than simple adventures, and explore ethical and psychological issues, too.


If you'd like to see my process for painting this piece, I took over 80 screenshots of my progress while I worked. [link]