Cats Trio Re-Revisit

I recently posted about a Cats Trio revisit that I drew at the end of last year...well, during my friend group's RPG session, I started doodling and started drawings of the cats again. And as a fun indulgence, I did a full finished piece of it.

For those who don't know, CATS TRIO was a comic my friends and I worked on (never finished) at the start of high school. Three mutated/anthropomorphic cats befriend a similar raccoon as the group discover their shared origins, survive in abandoned places away from human eyes, and avoid being hunted by another of their kind (a TMNT homage to be sure). 

For a past post about Cats Trio: https://davidpetersen.blogspot.com/2017/08/cats-trio-revisit-cover.html
Or, watch the Plotmasters Project episode about it here: https://www.theplotmasters.com/cats-trio

I took the rough pencils of the three cats I drew during game night, then revised a better drawing of the raccoon before putting them all into Photoshop and moved and resized them until I had a composition I liked. To help me see each of their forms, I blocked in some base colors for each character so that as I moved them individually, their colors moved with them.

Using a photo of a derelict bridge as reference, I penciled a background that gave the whole piece a 'Stand By Me' vibe.

The layout was then printed and taped to the back of a sheet of 11" x 17" Strathmore 300 series bristol. On my Huion lightpad I'm able to see through the surface of the bristol to the printout to use as a guide as I ink the lineart. I used a Copic Miltiliner SP 0.7 nib pen.

I left the details of the characters fairly open focusing more on line weight for their contours, fur texture, and clothing wrinkles. I spent more time on detail for the environment.

The inks were then scanned and brought into Photoshop again where I started the coloring process by blocking in all the flat colors (this professional version of coloring-in-the-lines is called 'flatting). Most of the color choices were already established from past Cats Trio pieces, but I did make some adjustments of value, saturation, and hue for this piece to help the viewer's eye move through it better.

At this stage I also established color holds (areas where I want the ink lines to be a color other than black) on the bindle bag, their pupils, and all of the background.

The final art (seen here without the Cats Trio logo) was rendered using the dodge and burn tools. I happened to be finishing the color rendering on the final character's at the virtual RPG gaming session with that same group of friends one week later). I pushed the background way back to make sure the characters were more of the focus (ironic with all the ink detail back there)

These characters are old friends. They occupy a special place in my heart that idealizes a great time in my young life establishing lifelong friendships. And while I have no current plans to develop Cats Trio, it's always fun when I get a chance to say hello to these guys and keep them alive.

Farewell Cocobolo

Our beautiful Colobolo passed over into the realm of memory yesterday. We are utterly heartbroken. It all happened so quickly. She was such a joy. The silence is deafening. She leaves us and her sister Bronwyn with giant holes in our hearts.

She was about 13 (our vet office at the time argued over if she was 2 or 4 when we got her, so we split the difference) and we had 10 amazing years with her. She was in good spirits and had a chance to see many of our friends and family on the 4th before an inoperable mass effecting her bladder left us no choice but to give her peace.

Coco was a rescue who we got after our first Anatolian Shepard passed away and our second Anatolian Bronwyn, who met adult Autumn as a puppy, suddenly didn't know how to be a dog without her big sister. We found Coco listed as being in need of a home.

She was several states away, a rescue who was found tied to a tree outside a infrequently used fire station training center. The family who was fostering her said they'd had seven people before us inquire, but when they met it was an obvious bad match. When I walked in the door, Coco knocked me down licked my face and sat on me begging for affection. She chose us immediately.

Coco was a bit mischievous and strong-willed about doing what she wanted, but her overwhelming trait was to be sweet and cuddly. 100+ lbs of cuddle with a big jowly face who could hold your arm down to prevent you from leaving and petting her further.

Many of the photos I'm sharing of our beloved girl are of her napping or just waking up from naps, it's because she was leery of people taking photos of her.

Within just a few months of us getting her, she blew her CCL (similar to an ACL in humans) and needed surgery. It was a hard recovery for her that took months, so when her other CCL went (which the vets told us would likely be the case--if one goes the other is about a year behind) a year and a half later, we did the other leg, but with a different procedure that would have a faster healing and recovery.

We know many folks didn't understand us putting the amount of orthopedic money into a dog––but she really was that special. I know everyone feels that way about their dog(s), but I can tell you that this was different. She connected to us on a level intellectually and emotionally differently than most other dogs I've owned or known.

My Mom was in the early stages of dementia setting in due to her Parkinson's, and Coco became her whisperer. Our dog could settle my Mom down and calmly look inter he eyes and just be there with her. This continued even after Mom moved in to our home for the final years of her life, and Coco was there with her every day keeping her company and being especially gentle for her size with Mom.

I mentioned before that she was mischievous––She once broke through a window screen onto the roof because I left the house with my Mom without taking her. I was dropping my Mom off at a care facility when my across the street neighbor texted me and asked if I knew my dog was on the roof. I drove home as quickly as I could and spent no time outside (for fear Coco would try to jump down to me) and ran in the house calling her name until I got to the broken window and got her back inside safely. Heart attack at the time, but a story for life.

And we will certainly miss her life in this house. She was loud (she barked at planes in the sky, and howled along with any sirens), she let you know what she wanted (food, potty, affection, you to move out of the spot she wanted to curl up in), and she was a real companion who wanted to share our lives. And she certainly did––and us in hers.

Rest in peace good girl. We will always love you because no amount of time would have been enough to spend with you.

Recent Commissions

Here are some recent 9" x 12"* brush pen commissions from HeroesCon. 

I expect to be doing pieces like this as pre-orders going into SDCC.

*a few were on sketchcovers and in smaller sketchbooks

Bunny Knight

Calvin & Hobbes

Don Karnage

D'Orc

Keznie on a branch

Lieam sketchcover*

Disney's Little John

Redwall's Riverwyte

Smaug*

Lieam on a Bramble
(this was a more detailed piece to raise money for Parkinson's Research)

Throg

Donatello*

Michelangelo with a turtle

Raphael fighting mousers

Hobbit for Magic the Gathering

I was commissioned by Wizards of the Coast to create artwork for the upcoming Hobbit Magic the Gathering set! I was given the privilege to draw four seasons of Bilbo's home of Bag End as basic lands. You can see the card with all the trappings of the game here and below is each one in full. The set releases August 14th and more info can be found here: https://magic.wizards.com/en/products/the-hobbit 

Bag End:

Spring
with flowers and berries in bloom
and the trees begin to bud in the breezy air

Bag End:

Summer
with fireflies dancing at dusk 

as the tomatoes come in

Bag End:

Autumn
with a crop of pumpkins ready for pie-making
and warm colored leaves fall to earth

Bag End:

Winter
with a blanket of snow insulating the warmth of spirit
inside hearth and hearts

The original 14" x 17" winked originals of these will be going up for auction in the Facebook group for original Magic the Gathering artwork: 
https://www.facebook.com/groups/mtgartinksprelimsrepaints/

© 2026 MEE LLC. TM lic MEE to WotC LLC This is being shared with the permissions from Wizards of the Coast

Cats Trio Revisit

I still find tremendous nostalgic comfort & joy in CATS TRIO: a comic my friends and I worked on (never finished) at the start of high school. Three mutated/anthropomorphic cats befriend a similar raccoon as the group discover their shared origins, survive in abandoned places away from human eyes, and avoid being hunted by another of their kind (a TMNT homage to be sure). Here is a new revisit I did just as a fun indulgence. 

For a past post about Cats Trio: https://davidpetersen.blogspot.com/2017/08/cats-trio-revisit-cover.html

Or, watch the Plotmasters Project episode about it here: https://www.theplotmasters.com/cats-trio

This revisit came from my going through old sketchbooks to scan for Patreon and I found a thumbnail lineup of the group that I think I drew at the time of the Plotmasters Project episode. I pulled it out with the idea of just inking it at that same size...but quickly realized it was both very small and that the characters were too loose to go straight to ink (especially the further to the right).

So, I blew up a scan of the rough and re-penciled it at a larger scale. On the back of the paper I also penciled in a boarded up fence I wasn't sure I wanted to add or not. 

Both sides of the pencils were scanned and reassembled in Photoshop and I found an old rusted road sign to reference I could add my Plotmasters Project-era CATS TRIO logo to.

With that printed out and taped to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol, I started inking the piece on my Huion lightpad. On the lightpad I can see through the surface of the bristol to the printout to use as my 'pencils' as I ink with a Copic Multiliner SP 0.7 nib pen.

Inks were scanned and the color process began by adding flat color to everything establishing not only what areas are what colors, but also what the overall base colors are. I pulled the color choices I'd made from my Plotmasters Project episode revisit, but they still needed to be altered a bit (hue, value, saturation) here and there for this piece.

It's at this stage that I also establish the color holds (areas where I want the inklines to be a color other than black). I did this on their pupils, glasses, the sign text, and the rust.

Here again are the final rendered colors. To add the shadows, highlights and texture I sued the Dodge and Burn tools in Photoshop with a stock textured brush.

These characters feel like old friends. They occupy a special place in my heart that idealizes a great time in my life with great friends. And while I have no current plans to develop Cats Trio, it's always fun when I get a chance to say hello to these guys and keep them alive.

Extending art for a new banner

A few years ago I did an image for a print of Saxon, Kenzie, and Rand (https://davidpetersen.blogspot.com/2024/07/saxon-kenzie-and-rand.html) and since it's one of my favorite Mouse Guard illustrations I wanted to have it featured on a new banner for my booth (seen here at ECCC '26).

But, the horizontal format of the initial image didn't work with the vertical banner shape. And when cropped to fit, important elements didn't end up in the printed area. So, I did an art edit and extension to reformat the piece. Below you can see the steps.

I started with the original piece and then in Photoshop started digitally painting extensions on the top and bottom to rough in the forms of plants, roots, rocks, etc. It took a few attempts to extend the forms in a way that didn't look like there was an obvious seam or without blending in by inking too far over the top of what already existed.

I also moved Rand in toward the center more, so there was a gap where he used to be that also had to be filled in.

The overall size of this piece was already sized to fit the dimensions of the banner size and I left enough room at the top for the text.

With the rough done, I printed out the sections I needed to extend and taped them to the back of some Strathmore bristol so I could ink the linework for the new bits on top of my Huion lightpad. First off were the weeds above the characters and the patch for filling in the root where Rand used to be.

You can see I made some pencil marks of existing bits of lineart from the original to help me register the new art back into the digital file when it was time.

The larger bit of inking was the bottom section. Same process with a printout of my digital mockup taped to the back of some bristol and inked on a lightpad. There was so much going on for this bit with the detail of the ground cover but also how those lines needed to feed back into the existing linework that this patch was much more time consuming.

Inks scanned in and registered in place with the existing inks (I had to do some layer masking on both the new and old inks to get everything to flow perfectly) I colored the new tall version of this piece. There was a lot of eye-dropper color selections to try and blend the new color with the old while trying not to overpaint any of the old work where I could help it.  

The original version of this image is available as a print: 
https://mouseguard.bigcartel.com/product/trio-print-14-x-20

and I've also now offered it as a playmat/deskpad: 
https://mouseguard.bigcartel.com/product/playmat-mouse-guard

Below you can see the final version for the banner with the text and logo: