The world's most evil cat, as drawn by me with a mouse!

[Matthew Hunter]

It's been a while since I posted any of my cartoon character drawings over here, and I thought I should post this drawing I did of one of my original characters. Originally conceived as a foil for Bill and Buster (http://toolooney.toonzone.net/images/billbustercomics/), I thought Hairball the Evil cat just wasn't mean looking enough. He looked too much like an anemic Sylvester than a ruthless boss of the alleycat mafia. I fooled around with him in Paint last night and came up with a redesign that looked too cool not to share with you. The tattered appearance, the angular face, and the all-black, spikey fur are new. I took all color out of him, including gray, except for the red in the mouth and the yellow slit eyes.

The design is a combination of influences. I created him when I was a kid when I was doodling images of Sylvester off TV and decided to create a negative version of him. I remembered it when I was drawing comic stories for friends in high school, and brought him back for a Bill and Buster story. That's when I made him really skinny, gave him arms sort of like a dead tree, and the disfigured, pointy snout. The yellow, slit-eyes are a combination of 2 things...one, the way the animated Batman is designed....the eyes have no pupil or iris features at all, they are narrow, glowing slits. Two, the rats from Disney's "Lady and the Tramp" that scared the crap out of me when I was az kid. There's also a bit of the grinch in there, and hints of a demon or dragon. The tongue? That's new, and sort of a nod to the creep appearance of Gene Simmons in the band Kiss. I need some criticism here, constructive preferrably. What would make him look better? What do you like about the design? Dislike?

http://toolooney.toonzone.net/images/newhairball.jpg

[Trogdor]

That's really cool! Of course, he might have to settle for The World's Second Most Evil Cat. Don't forget about Evil the cat from Earthworm Jim! He's a feline demon from Hell, nothing can be more evil than that!

[Rune]

Great design Matthew, I really like the whole spikey look to him and the fact that they eyes remain featureless, that says such a lot about his nature. I'll be honest with you and say he does remind me a fair bit of Wile E Coyote with the stance / facial features but that aside its a very good & strong design :)

[James]

I'll be honest with you and say he does remind me a fair bit of Wile E Coyote with the stance / facial features but that aside its a very good & strong design :)

Same here, definately a little Wile in there... (certainly how Wile should look after many misplaced bombs and fustrating misfortunes with that blasted bird).

Nice consistency, they are great model sheets. I like how you managed to keep the form despite the character being virtually all black!