"Arctic Adaptations"

Clowns to the left of me...

I suppose this is a sort of a process post, but more on what's going on in the back ground, off in the peanut gallery. Both Moochie-Bear and Atticus the Omnipresent Editor have been somewhat stymied as of late, what with the angle of the drawing board being reset for production mode. In other words, they can't nonchalantly waltz across my work-in-progress anymore. Well, after a few triggered avalanches they finally figured it out.

... jokers to the right

One wonders how I ever manage to get any work done around the place, with such an attentive audience. Not to mention it's indicative of how much time i spend sitting there in one spot, and how many shots I go through to get the perfect picture (about as high a success rate as with using little children for models). But given the preponderance of other cartoonists who have cats as either their totemic spirit animal or at the very least use them as emotional support animals, it's evidently part + parcel of the profession.

The instigating doodle shows how much tweaking was needed as the stream-of-consciousness process of instinctive refining gradually results in a better illustration that precisely captures the sentiment. It's like a mental flow-chart that unfolds in real time right before your eyes... idea > encapsulated realization.

Which unfortunately at the end required some judicious digital editing... family-friendly publication y'know. But locals, we know exactly what's going through the mind of the seasonal sad sack.