mysticalmarzicats

[mysticalmarzicats]

AH! LOVELY!!! these are so cute and you did sucha good job @weeblebird

An art project I started back in 2023 has finally grown into a small tribe of jellicle cats of my own! I do plan on making the entire junkyard, slowly but surely 😸

Two Grizabellas based on her more current and classic looks, Mistoffelees (or Quaxo, might make a more glamorous version down the line!), Rum Tum Tugger, Munkustrap, Alonzo, & Victoria (Rainbow & Monster high) so far! I have a few more in the works as well 😄

Bonus real life Jellicle boy wanted to be part of the fun ❤️ Safe to say Alonzo is his favorite!

[mysticalmarzicats]

Hey there just saw ur rococo cats non rep designs and they look soo neat!! and tbh just wanna ask ya since its a non rep whats the set gonna be like and also what stuff ya wanna add to this non rep and also are ya gonna do the other characters soon?

Im glad you like my designs! if I remember correctly I didn't have any super specific thoughts about the set when I first did the designs as I was more focused on the fashions than fleshing out a full nonreplica production.

it might be fun to have it set somewhere in the gardens of Versailles.

as for continuing I might if the mood strikes me one day but no promises as my current media fixation has shifted. I might come back to Cats eventually but for the time being I dont have any plans for building the idea further

[mysticalmarzicats]

[mysticalmarzicats]

pspspsps...cats fans.........

[mysticalmarzicats]

Presto!

[mysticalmarzicats]

I realized I never posted these here on tumblr! 2020 did unspeakable things to my mind and body…I staggered away from lockdown with a whole pitch of how I would make an animated Cats adaptation. I got the whole thing up here *taps skull*—it would be Very Good. I can’t think about it too much lest I awaken my sleeping obsession…still want to finish Old Deut and Macavity one of these days.

Fun fact: The term "Jellicle Cat" is actually the cats’ mishearing of the term "Dear Little Cat" (this gives me much joy)

@thedrawingduke on Instagram

[mysticalmarzicats]

heyyy yall look what finally is up on etsy!!

there is a very small amount of each of them cause this was only really a test batch, but im super excited to say that i love them and i will be getting more made!

[mysticalmarzicats]

.... I mean... this is literally one of the reasons I picked sprigatitto.

I simply adore my dumb magician cat so much ; < ;

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Pokémon Scarlet/Violet spoilers underneath

Meowscarada is Jellicle Cat. send post.

[mysticalmarzicats]

Ooh these look exciting!

Ive been working on a side project over the past week or two and the discord has seen it but i think im far enough into the project that it will be happening for sure.

Im making Cats charms!!!!

They are going to be dropped in waves, which ive kinda labeled but some might move around and other characters might be added

Ive got a working list of all the ones that i want to make charms for (but i can be persuaded to add some other characters if they are requested enough)

[mysticalmarzicats]

The Subway....Cats?

“Skimbleshanks first ran into these three down a forgotten subway tunnel, he’s not quite sure if they're actually cats or not ( the one going by Lady Sneasler has to be part badger.. or something..) but they were polite, told him that they were “just passing through this universe”, and enjoyed enthusing about different train engines for hours.... so they cant be all that bad.”

Good morning! I hope you guys enjoy this silly mashup between two of my current interests. (Cats the musical & Pokemon Subway Masters)

[mysticalmarzicats]

IM with ya on the animated adaptation idea! Imagine if they did it in style similar to fantasia... bookending the film with a little bit of theater pastiche at the beginning and end.. then getting all experimental with the animation for each number....

I feel like it'd be really cool if Jellicle songs for Jellicle cats started out as like very naturalistic animation of all the cats converging in the junkyard. like on all fours realistic cat animation but then as the music starts to swell it gets more and more cartoony/animated.

 Like when Munk stands up to start off the song it should look something like that one scene of the Cat parade in The Cat Returns but then as more an more cats join in the scene gets overall more vibrant more animated, the various cats get more and more anthropomorphized ( all in slightly different styles tho to reflect their number? Maybe?) until the first song ends and everybody is all smiling and vibrant and the Junkyard is alive!!

each song thereafter gets a different animation style that applies to the entire junkyard/ imaginary scene thats set. 

what do you think about cats movie 2019? did you enjoy it?

So the movie was my introduction to Cats, and I went to go see it ironically with my siblings since we all heard how mortifying it was.

And like, yeah I didn't like it very much? I thought it was weird and I didn't understand it, and humans are so scared of what they don't understand. Granted, I had no clue about what I was going into, and my initial reaction was mostly in part to being taken way off-guard. I remember liking Skimbleshanks and thinking that, the fur itself looked really nice even if the designs were ugly. But mostly I thought it was a bad weird movie.

Now that I've had three years to reflect on it?

It's still a bad movie, but for different reasons than I initially disliked it.

1) The character designs are just bad and uncomfortable. They all have fully human faces, hands and feet, and it does not look good. This was an initial takeaway but I still stand by it. The fur itself was rendered well, but it doesn't save the designs.

2) They just made some straight up upsetting decisions regarding Jennyanydots and Bustopher Jones. I don't care that they're different, they're just actively unlikable and uncomfortable (I don't want inaccuracy to the stage show to be a factor in my opinion; I'm trying to judge it as a standalone entity). You can tell that Rebel Wilson and James Cordon just kind of thought of their characters as a joke and had no respect for them, which is simply not a good look. I'd never cast an actor who didn't have respect for their role. And if the character isn't deserving of any respect, then it's a badly written character.

3) I'm sure we've all seen the Sideways video about what a trainwreck the music was. The way it was recorded was not flattering for the vocals OR the orchestra; rhe style of recording lends itself to realism, which just does not work with the kind of story Cats is.

Which leads me to qthe most complicated one:

4) They tried to force Cats into a traditional narrative, which...just did work. They tried to have a focal protagonist (who I feel like wasn't effective foil for Grizabella), they padded the movie with dialogue in an attempt to flesh out the Jellicle Ball and Jellicle Choice, which just made things MORE confusing tbh, and trying to make Macavity more of a present threat was a noble move, but ultimately failed.

This open up a conversation about what a good film adaptation of Cats would look like.

Good news,, we already got one in 1998.

It's not just a proshot; it's also a film. They used cinematic techniques that are specific to the medium when they recorded it; use of CGI, use of editing techniques such as slow-motion, performing multiple takes, pre-recording the vocals and lip-syncing during shooting, etc.

They even modified the makeup designs to better suit close-ups. And to replicate the audience interaction, they chose to have the cats look into the camera. These are adaptational choices that WORK.

But like, okay, suppose that 1998 doesn't count. You want a "proper" film.

In my professional Film Major opinion, Cats is one of the worst musicals to adapt to film. Too much of its appeal lies in the strengths of theater and the weaknesses of film.

We want films to be realistic, in a visual sense. In theater, you can get away with standing on an empty stage and miming washing dishes, and the audience will believe that the character is literally performing that task, not pretending to do so. That does not fly in film. We need to see a sink and plates and forks and water. There's little room for abstraction, is what I'm trying to say.

And Cats is so abstract. This works GREAT on stage, but not much so for live-action film.

Abstract meaning "exists as an idea, but not having a concrete existence".

We understand that the cats we see on stage are literally cats; but they're representing by the suggestion of cats. Bold makeup, fluffy wigs, and painted unitards combined with certain movements suggest cats to us without trying to literally look like a real cat.

In film? You need to look like a cat. If a lady walked onto the big screen with a rope tail and painted on whiskers, you'd say "that's a lady in a cat costume, not a cat." You want to see furry ears and a tail that actually twitch and move. Probably retractable claws and slit pupils, too.

And then you'd have to figure out how to adapt the rest of the plot. Do they stay in the junkyard, keeping it confined to one location as per the stage musical? Do you lean into the abstraction, or try to make it more realistic? That, of course, was the failure of 2019; trying to make an abstract and whimsical musical into something realistic. If you want to aim for realism, I truly think you'd have to change the source material beyond recognition.

I used to talk about adapting Cats as an animated anthology, showcasing each song in a different style of animation. And I still think that would be sick, but my thought process there was that animation lends itself well to abstraction; you would lose out on the magic of live dance, but could perhaps make up for it with stunning, stylized animation. It's what I personally would enjoy most.

TLDR; it wasn't a good movie OR a good adaptation, but to be fair, Cats is fucking hard to adapt.

[mysticalmarzicats]

OH my gosh is that a Jemima that I see!? SO CUTE! I did a misto doll awhile back but she is absolutely darling ^^

what base doll/dolls did you use? 

So basically, cat girls

[mysticalmarzicats]

bg from Lady and the Tramp not finishing this, but doing some more character placement practice

[mysticalmarzicats]

I mainly use colony, simply because well I like that it pinpoints the fact that They. Are. Cats.

Genuine question that I've been thinking about - do you think it's in bad taste to refer to the Jellicles as a "tribe", given the racial connotations of that word? I know the creators and fandom probably don't mean anything by it, and I'm not trying to start a fight in the fandom but with the the racism already present in some stagings of the show and the other words that exist to refer to a group of cats, do you think another word might be a better idea?

This is actually a very good question and overarching point, anon; one that I have found myself pondering from time to time. 

I'm afraid I don't believe I have the appropriate proverbial toolkit necessary to fully unpack this the way it deserves, nor do I have any kind of authority on this subject. It's a complex and nuanced matter that is heavily intertwined with critical race theory. The term "tribe", even at a very basic level, is deeply rooted in colonialism and horribly outdated 19th century social theory. The word does not (nor has it ever) inherently exist in neutrality because of these associations.

It does bring up two very important points that I can briefly touch on while opening up the floor, though, being the idea of intent (and whether that actually carries enough weight to "justify" anything), and the other overarching matter that whatever is associated with CATS can very quickly delve into otherwise uncomfortable territory, particularly in the racialized sense, as it (whatever it may be) is immediately associated with animals. Referring to a group of animals as a "tribe" is a very slippery slope downwards, when we consider it from that angle in association to the racially charged meaning behind the word.

I would say that having a better term to refer to the Jellicles is always an easily adaptable possibility (even just calling them a group of cats) - there really is no reason that the word still has to be used. However, again, I don't believe I have any qualification to comment upon this.

[mysticalmarzicats]

The Automaton Cat ( The Cat Returns & Cats crossover)

“ ..and this is  Baron Humbert von Gikkingen, he’s one of  Deuteronomy's old old friends.”

“ He smells of wood and paint! what is he?”

“ I am a Creation, mistress Syllabub. and its pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Drew this cute little crossover a while back and realized that I never got around to posting it so here it is.  I like to  imagine Baron popping in to visit the Jellicles every once in a while when not busy with Bureau business and being good friends with Ol’ Duet. The kittens are not quite sure what to make of this strange figure tho ( after all he looks like a cat.. but smells all wrong and dresses all fancy! what is he?) they do eventually warm up to him though.

[mysticalmarzicats]

Adorable! All of them

Doodles I did yesterday !!