Rat Mood Dump

[soc_puppet]

A whopping twelve rat moods!

I'm also planning to make a pinned post with both A) All of the image links for anyone who needs to block them, and B) All of the images themselves, so I can look at them to cheer myself up. "Look at how cute they are!" I will say to myself. "Look at these cute things I made to make myself happy, and other people also like them! What a good thing doing art is."

Anyway, on to the rats!

These are a bit jumbled; I took six weeks' worth of moods from around Part Four of moodthemeinayear's schedule to work ahead on, since those are the moods that will roughly overlap with summerofthe69. I still have some left to go, especially since I discovered an oopsie from that time period, but once those are done, I'll probably move onto the next part that overlaps with Sot69.

Here's what I have finished from Part Four(ish) so far:

Complacent, Hopeful, High


Mellow, Indifferent, Loved


Grateful, Full, Relieved


Good, Recumbent, Jubilant


I've got thoughts on most of these, so feel free to point one out and I'll share!

Comments

[bigcatsmallcat]

hello, i am obsessed with your cute little rats!! i'm tearing up just looking at them!! your "What a good thing doing art is" comment also made me smile because you're right!! i'm so grateful i got to see them :')
i love love love mellow and grateful and would love to hear more about them :'') but i'm also open to hearing any thoughts on any of them, because they're just sooo cute!! thank you so much for making them exist :')

[soc_puppet]

Thank you 😊 Honestly, I credit following the exemplary drchucktingle on Tumblr for inspiring me to write that; he posts a lot about the nature of art and creativity, and both how wonderful and how important it is to do and to share. I was definitely channeling a bit of his energy there.

Mellow: Blaze rattie! I don't think that the blaze coloration was available when I was first researching and getting rats, but it's one I absolutely love. In retrospect and considering the name, I probably should've given the High rat a blaze pattern 😂 But I didn't think of that until just now. Rats loooooove hammocks, and chilling out in hammocks, so I thought it would be the perfect setup for a very mellow, chill rat. As much as I love rat colors in general, I also like having opportunities to include other colors, get some variety in there and brighten things up.

Grateful: A seal-point rattie with a whole stick of celery! If I were a rat and got something delicious that was almost the size of me, I would definitely be grateful. And then haul it off to a hidey-hole to eat some now and save the rest for later 😂 Siamese rats were definitely available when I had pet rats, but I also never got any of those. I, uh, mostly stuck to pet store rats 😓 Not ideal ethically, but, well. This one is also a personal reference to some of the first rat art I did, of my first pair of rats; I drew one of them with his own stalk of celery and looking quite pleased about it, and thought it would be a nice homage. Looking at it now, I am a bit worried that the Grateful rat's tail will be confused with one of its forelegs, but oh well! Maybe I'll re-do that in the future, or maybe not. As with Mellow, I like the extra pop of color the celery gave me an excuse for.

Speaking of color, I've done my best to keep close to web-safe colors as much as I can, but sometimes it just doesn't quite work out. That said, I am trying to get as many accurate-ish rat colors as I can into this mood theme, and cinnamon, the color from Full and Good, is one I had forgotten about until this most recent set! Picking which colors to use for which rats can be a little difficult, since I don't want to over-do any one color, so having figured out another that it's safe to use is a real boon.

Thank you for the opportunity to share!

[bigcatsmallcat]

i absolutely love all the colors you decided to include, it makes them feel so different and alive :'') and knowing that each color is such a well-thought choice makes it even better!
cinnamon is such a pretty color!! and looking at it again, i love the little almost heart-shaped spot on Good's chest :'') so cute!!

i did not expect the celery stick to have such an interesting backstory!! that is so cool! thank you for sharing :) and if it helps, i did not confuse Grateful's tail and leg, but i did study them pretty closely from excitement hehe

thank you so much for sharing all of that, i love these little guys so so much!!