Hey there, Furs! Today I'd like to share with you a special artist in the SoCalfurs community,  bkatt500, co-winner of the SoCalFurs October 2013 art contest with her piece of our mascot Tamerlaine riding on one of southern California's many, many bike trails.

Bkatt took the first steps as a budding anthro artist at around 10 or 11, drawing from her interests in anime, pokemon, and Disney, and then later on, Neopets. Those inspirations, especially Neopets and Redwall, helped nourish an artistic interest in anthropomorphic characters. After encountering the Furry Fandom, she found her interest captured by a community of other artists that shared her love of anthros, and soon enough she found herself in the fursuiting community as well! Take a look at her gallery, and you can see her own fursuit work, whether it be Illiana the long-tailed weasel, or one of her ongoing projects. You can check out her fursuit blog here at http://esscritters.tumblr.com/ !

At around the age of twelve, Bkatt first began experimenting with digital art, and eventually discovered she could combine her pencil sketches and lines with digital coloring, creating her own 'tradigital' method of creating her art. While her older artwork can be recognized through her own unique style, she is proud to be able to look back and see the progress she's made.

Bkatt describes her style as a “bit of semi-realism, a bit of some common Western styles,” while still remembering her early influences such as anime and Neopets. Bkatt's favorite things to draw are her anthros and monsters, using her artistic pieces to design and develop her characters as well as experimenting with their style and technique. One thing's for sure, she's come a long way and we're proud to have such a skilled artist as part of Socalfurs!

Creating character designs is a large part of her work, and Bkatt uses various methods to create a myriad of character design concepts. Using a root idea like a particular animal, color scheme, or another small concept, the idea sprouts into a full character design, giving birth to other ideas, other characters, or stories of their own. Frequently, old character designs are rehashed and recycled into fresh ones, keeping the artistic cycle revolving. If you ever find yourself in need of an original and thoughtful character design, check out her page to see if she has any of her designs on auction! Recently, Bkatt has gone back to redo some old work, specifically her piece “Fight and Flight”, a beautiful example of the progress she's made as an anthro artist here on FurAffinity, as well as DeviantArt.

So, SoCalFurs, how about some support for a special SoCalFur artist? Go give bkatt500 some love and support and give her page a +watch! And again, a firm congratulations to Bkatt for being the co-winner of SoCalFurs' October 2013 art contest.

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Written by  risingtempest, with small edits by  summercat. Watching Fox drawn by  leotiger
Part 1 of 2 for the first series, done in the order the writeups are completed

Spotlighted Artists are chosen amongst those who do art for and around the community, and participate in community events - with the first two being the winners of the October Art Contest.