Black Cat Biiiiiiiiiiiig Stretch (+ process)

So. This Black Cat started as a sketch that I had done, I dunno, two years ago or something? It was left sitting as an open file in Clip Studio, and as I was going through looking for random sketches, I stumbled upon it the other day, and, because I liked the composition, I sloppily worked on it a bit more to get a more workable image, and so this was the final sketch before drawing:

This drawing, like my last Ingrid, took… a lot of layers! As usual, I started with lines and flats, and then, like Ingrid before her, I rendered her latex in separate layers to really give it that shine. Honestly the primary goal of this drawing was just to spend time rendering latex again — but in the style that I used on Ingrid. All the heavy black spaces would still have depth, and so light could still subtly hit them!

Afterwards, it was all about creating shadows, and then going back and forth between figuring out highlights and color temperature. Highlights are hard, because they can destroy image balance if not done well, and keeping the image in one palette while still including lots of color contrast is a challenge! So I usually start drawing highlights in yellow, and then I just change the color and opacity as I go to see what fits well.

The layers on top which change the color temperature are of various types — some are multiply layers, some overlay, some hard light, etc., just whatever I can use to get a vibe that I like. Remember, when it comes to MY art, I am usually unaware what I am doing with color until I am actually doing it. This is primarily because I just have less knowledge of how each color will react to the others until I see it on the page (I don’t know color theory, but I think I have a good sense of these things when I see them).

I also decided this time to actually give her hair more rendering, in terms of both shadow and highlights; I have been kind of not rendering it as much for effect, but I feel like that would flatten this particular drawing in a way I didn’t want.

And this time, because we see her whole body, I actually did shadowing underneath her. I really wanted that “on the ground” feel hahaha

What do you all think? How does this Black Cat stand up to other Black Cat drawings I have done? Do you think this rendering style is working well? How does the composition of the piece work to you overall? Would love to hear your thoughts! ☺️☺️☺️