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Kattanaita's Originals #4: Kattanaita 2023

The year was 1993. It was a uniform-free day at the school. I could finally debut my full collection of Tigor T. Tigre clothing that took me years to convince my parents to get. The set consisted of a baseball cap, a t-shirt, a pair of shorts and a fanny pack. I was missing the sneakers (and the socks!), but my parents would never give me those - they were too expensive.

During break, I was standing alone in my corner, as I usually did. No one had reacted to my cool tiger-themed clothing. I was rather disappointed, as I thought I looked pretty cool; tigers were super awesome. Halfway through the break, this random kids stopped in front of me, stared at me from head to toe and simply said "you look like a clown." He then left with a seemingly disgusted look on his face.

I was disheartened, but I got it. For many years I'd seen other kids with cool clothes and always wished I had cool clothes like that myself. Now I was the one with the cool clothes, and he despised that because he wished he had such cool clothes himself. At least that's what I told myself that day. But in future uniform-free days at school, I wore the uniform instead. Perhaps being called a clown was too much for 9-year-old me to bear.

The point of this story is that the set was very aggressively 90s themed. The main color was a bright purple. I can't remember the accent color. I want to say orange, but my memory deceives me. The point is, it was a very bright getup.

When Zodd updated my look for the Gaypardo 2022 Holidays comic with the cool backwards cap - always a staple of my dress code back in the day, and perhaps even a little bit nowadays - my mind went straight back to that moment. None of my classmates thought I was cool, and a random kid called me a clown. None of my friends liked Tigor T. Tigre, but I knew he was cool. Tigor was a cool tiger, and if no one wanted to be friends with him, I would! I was proud to wear his clown-like clothes!

This new color scheme brings warm feelings to my heart. The memory is not a great one, but I'm proud I stood my ground and kept begging my parents for more Tigor clothing even after that negative reaction, but they'd never get me any more - it was way more expensive than other brands, and apparently I only got the set because it was on sale. Maybe it was the clown colors; who knows.

I'm not one of those people who look at late 80s and early 90s and think they were better than current times. I think the 90s sucked big time. But I like the bright colors. Among all the awful stuff, there are little nuggets of warmth. I stood by myself, but I at least did not allow others to force me to turn down what mattered to me just because they did not accept it.

So, in 2023, Kattanaita wears bright neon pink and greens (and some purple too!). I think it suits me well. I was always made fun for wearing backwards caps as well. But even when I was ridiculed, I still kept doing that. No one wanted to be friends with a ridiculous guy, but I was at least authentic. I liked what I liked, and I was proud of it, even if I was the only one who thought so. It was lonely, but if no one could like me for what I was, liking me for what I wasn't wouldn't change anything - it would be a feeling just as empty, and in the end I'd be betraying myself, which is arguably the most important person in my life.

No one has called me a clown yet, but the year has just started. There are plenty of opportunities. XD

Props to  zodd95 for creating such a cool updated design for my character. I was so in love with the design that I wanted to try my own hand at it. This is a pseudo 7th panel to our holiday celebration. It is pointless and unnecessary, but it amused me to think Kattanaita would be saying such a thing upon witnessing the banter between Aracê and Zodd.

This art took me so long to make. And I forgot the goddamn cap. It would take me a few hours to add the cap in, color and shade it, so I decided not to add it after the picture was done. As most art I make, as soon as it was done, I disliked it. It felt so plastic. I wanted to make a new one to try to get it right then, so there was no point spending even more hours editing something that I was not very happy with.

Looking at it now, a few weeks after the fact, I can say I have gained some appreciation for it. It's brightly colored, and bright colors make me happy. I think I messed up the head, but just like when that kid called me a clown, despite the perceived flaws, I'm proud of it. I made it. It's not great, but it's mine. And as such, it has value, even if just for me. When I'm gone, will anyone love it? Most likely not. It will be probably be instantly forgotten. But Kattanaita does not mind it. He's just happy to be here now.

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Kattanaita's Originals is a collection of all brand-new art made by me, as opposed to Kattanaita's Collection, which comprises all my old work that was somehow lost or destroyed, but that I was able to recover in some shape or form.


If, for some dog-forsaken reason you want to see this art in its full, original resolution, you can do so on Patreon.
It's for Big Cats only, though. That's the cute name I give my Patrons! :3

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