went to a pride pin event on campus!

i saw a catcatfish drawing and i went "oh this artist who is a huge part of my childhood did that in the 2000s im gonna rb and share her stuff" and that only led me to find that she deleted all of her comics and honestly it fucking sucks

edit: i remembered all the issues deviantart had with ai and i cant blame her for it. fuck

If you're visiting my blog from the Goncharov post scroll down until you hit the catcatfish poll and vote.

here's something stupid: the catcatfish

some quick facts:

they're nocturnal and tend to roam around while awake.

they have keen senses of smell and hearing, but terrible eyesight. despite this, they also have a tapetum lucidum, making their pupils "glow" in the dark.

their fur is short, dense, and oily to waterproof them.

they prefer a diet of mostly meat and are attracted to strong-smelling food like fish, cheese, and anything fermented.

the elongated dewclaw on each front paw is sharp, flexible, and nonretractable. it injects a venom that causes respiratory failure and cardiac arrest in prey and, in extreme doses, humans. veterenarians typically remove the dewclaw venom glands during the neuter/spay procedure.

they grow to an average of 1m and 23kg (3ft and 50lb) but can reach up to double that length and triple the weight!

🐈🐈🐟!!

have you ever wished your cat was stupider and hungrier?

BOOP!! (punctures your skin with a venomous spine)

catcatfish boop

I am so obsessed with the catcatfish they bring me joy on a cosmic level I can't even explain, thank you

EXCELLENT 💜 i'm really floored by all the enthusiasm i've seen for these silly guys! finals crunch is bearing down on me so it means a lot to bring smiles to people with my silly stress scribbles.

i totally encourage anyone who's interested in drawing their own to feel free to do so! if you want to, @ me and/or tag it as #catcatfish ^_^ there's no hard rules of course because i'm not anyone's boss, but if you're curious about a list of guidelines for designing your own, here's some scaffolding for you to spitball with:

the "original" catcatfish is based off of a blue catfish, and likewise i would encourage designers to pick a real catfish species to base theirs after. their minimum size is housecat size, but if the real-life catfish gets bigger than that, then so will the catcatfish. keep the salinity in mind, i.e. don't put a gafftopstail in a river or lake. and just like a real fish, chlorinated pools are toxic!

in terms of silhouette, just think of them as a catfish with paws and ears. they have a wide subterminal/inferior mouth, fleshy barbels, beady far-apart eyes, a round trunk, and a wide & powerful tail. the limbs are cat limbs, but the proportions are closer to that of a river otter to make them more hydrodynamic.

the fur is also very otterlike in terms of length, texture, and density. the fins are only furred on the leading spine of the dorsal fin and the fleshy base of the adipose fin. remember: they're amphibious, so there are no long-haired or hairless catcatfish! they need their slick, short fur to stay warm and reduce drag underwater. long fur and hairlessness will make it harder for them to swim and also give them severe hypothermia.

in terms of color, it's pretty open-ended: basically any real-world fish coloration, plus tabby and piebald versions of each, along with melanistic ("nightcrawler") and leucistic/albino (haven't picked a catchy name for that one yet).

they are omnivorous, but will prefer to eat more meat than plants (or vice versa) if that's what their IRL catfish counterpart eats; a pleco catcatfish will eat a lot more veggies, for instance, but it'll still need some animal protein. their only true teeth are two small fangs on the top jaw and two on the lower jaw. they eat by gulping food/prey down whole. if they're eating on land, that means they'll jerk their heads back like a bird/lizard to swallow; underwater, they use suction. they have an extremely strong prey drive. they can eat kibble and wet food like a cat, but may struggle to gulp it on land; pour the kibble into a wide bowl of water when it's time to eat so the catcatfish will have an easier time swallowing it.

i mentioned this in another post: the operculum seals the gills shut on land, so you'll only see those bright red gill filaments while the catcatfish is in water. i draw two gill slits as a cartoony stylistic choice, but really they have however many gills that the corresponding catfish species does. the gill slits are visible from the inside if they open their mouths wide enough.

don't forget the dewclaw spine! i can't endorse declawing :p

may I make my own catcatfish character? :3

sure sure! they're not nearly original enough of a concept for me to get all that possessive over. if you want a reference guide of some more thoughts about the species and how one might draw them, check out this post i made earlier!