Flag Cat-Original

For April Fools 2012, we at deviantART put on a prank at a scale we've never done in the past. The whole site was taken over by cats, a militant brigade calling themselves the Feline UpRising (FUR).

The idea of a cat takeover belongs to $Ayame-Kenoshi, but it was through a few discussions together that we decided to turn it away from the standard "cute internet meme cats" and more towards an actual feline revolution, of sorts.

For the last in my series of cat posters, I knew I needed a patriotic image more than a war image. The other two posters were war/leadership posters, but this one is obviously more of a "bright future" type of allegiance image. It still had to feel strong and dominant, though, which is why I stuck with tan and red more than happier colors.

The inspiration for this illustration as well as the other Cat Propaganda illustrations was drawn from propaganda of the past. Our familiarity with propaganda is drawn from old posters we've all seen: from WW2 and from Communist Russia and China. We also knew we wanted the cats to be "evil" in some way, which is why we drew more from "evil" propaganda imagery rather than, say, American or English propaganda.

The model for this flag cat is $laurenkitsune's cat, Scamp. Some have accused this illustration as looking too surprised, but I like to think he's just bright-eyed.