Kat Johnston

Tag: Owls

  • Sketch: Time for another owl.

    Kat Johnston: Little Chester is an excited little owl!

    Surprisingly enough, ‘sketches for owls’ is one of the most popular search-terms people use to lead them to this site. Considering that I have not done a sketch of an owl in quite a while for here, something a little more current in the owl category certainly could not go astray, right?

    Thus, I bring you Chester. Chester is an owl. He is also very excited.

    I’m honestly not all that sure about what it is that Chester appears so excited about, but I am sure it is something good!

    Oh wait… I think I know what it is after all… you see, I’ve decided that after having the site as it is for a year, it is time that I started giving it the attention it deserves and do a redesign of it. So, uh, yeah… keep tuned! Sorry this is just a short post today, but I have to get to work. Phew.

  • Sketch: What happens when an owl bites a zombie rat?

    Kat Johnston Sketch: What happens when a zombie rat is bitten by a non-zombie owl? Why, it turns into a zombie owl, of course!

    Want to understand where this has come from? Read yesterday’s post. I may or may not have been musing about the existence of zombie-rats as the result of scientific testing as a precursor to the regular zombie apocalypse, colloquially known as ‘Zompocalypse’.

    Let’s try to follow my logic for a sec: Rats turn into zombies because of weird and wacky mad scientists trying to create the next great bio-weapon and testing said bio-weapon on rats. Zombie-rats escape the lab (hey, if the Rats of Nymph can do it, super-smart zombie-rats can too) and bite everything in sight… thus turning humans (and other creatures) into zombies too.

    These zombie-rats aren’t the slow-moving, arms-outstretched, brain-dead zombies of yore… These zombie-rats are smart. They’re so darn smart, they understand the concept of sweet sweet revenge. And they’re willing to act on it.

    So, what enjoys swooping on rats, scooping them up, and supping on their still-warm innards after pecking them to death? Owls. It is only natural that these new super-smart zombie-rats would plot to overcome the vicious owls who have plagued them so long.  Zombie-rats swarm the not-zombie-owls, biting em all over, and thus making zombie-owls (perhaps even mind-controlled zombie-owl minions). The great chain of life (or death, as it were) is complete… or… something like that, anyway.

    Ok, I realize that it’s a little out there, but I really did want an excuse to draw a zombie owl. That, and I am incredibly surprised at the significant lack of zombie animals in these movies… the best I think I’ve seen is a few rabid dogs. I realize that human afflictions often don’t translate into the animal world and visa versa, but surely a few do, right? Zombie-ism should be one!

    Anyhow… that is all for today. Viva-la-zombies!

  • The Orly Owl done another way.

    The ‘Orly’ owl is generally such a happy, peppy fellow… lets see what the other ‘Orly’ looks like.

    The ‘O rly’ owl is a cute little fellow. He’s a snowy white owl sporting the simple little litters ‘O RLY?’ beneath him. For those who have never seen or heard about him, check out the wiki. Now I for one like the phrase, but to me, one side of it only has been covered – the incredulous ‘oh really?’ as opposed to the other that I rather like. The one dripping with barely contained sarcasm after being told either something you already know (that they know you know), or perhaps just after you’ve been told such a tall tale that it barely belies belief for a moment, let alone serious consideration. Well… those are a couple of em, anyway. I’m sure it works in many more situations too.

    Thus, I present to you, my own little ‘O rly’ owl. The owl who says ‘meh’ soon afterwards. Not the incredulous, perhaps shocked or surprised type, but the rather more realistic and perhaps a touch disenchanted type. The type that has a wry upwards curl to the edges of their beak (since we are, after all, talking about owls right now). The kind that can deliver such a line with the appearance of dead-pan seriousness, even if their words might have an inflection of amusement.

    That is Archibald, the alternative ‘O Rly’ owl.

    Oh, by the way, on an entirely unrelated but still rather interesting note, take a peek at this great article about emerging trends in logo design. Its interesting even if you’re not a design person, promise!

  • Who has two shiny eyes, a hooked little beak, and an obesity problem?

    He’s Deiter, Deiter, Deiter the pudgey owl, he’s Deiter, Deiter, listen to him hoot and howl!

    Deiter the pudgy owl! Come on, you have to admit, even with a little extra around the edges, Deiter is a very handsome young gentleman. Well, that is my view in any case!

    We’re returning to my owl addiction for a day or two perhaps – and you can certainly blame Lins for bringing it on. She gave me a link to this site that featured mad scientist alphabet blocks (which I would dearly like a set of, by the way). If you will notice, in the upper left hand corner is the Inhabitots logo – owls! Both the alphabet blocks and the cute little owls were just too much to ignore, so the pen drew Deiter of its own accord when I sat down to make something just now.

    On another little note, our carpet is almost dry from its dousing in water from the rains the other night.. luckily it seems as if no more got in with last night’s downpour, which included hail too this time. Apparently greater storms are brewing for Saturday though… wish us luck.

  • The Last Lecture.

    Just another little owl who sits upon my page.

    This drawing was done last night, while chatting to a friend of mine. She has a certain love of owls, so this is just what sprung to mind as I was sitting there with a notebook and the pen of the day… still the green one, as you can see, because it was close to hand and thankfully, still working.

    I’m going to share with you what I have been doing for the morning thus far. I’ve been sitting back and watching the Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. Its worth every single minute and yes, I did tear up. I’m a wuss. I know that he is one of those people that would have affected so many lives in so many ways… even if he himself didn’t even know it. He acknowledged himself some of the people who really had that great influence on him too.

    I wonder sometimes whether some of the people I have known and have affected me in such a way even know about it. I can thank, for example, one particular teacher for giving me the drive and belief in myself enough to go to university, rather than take the other options that had been laid before me. Honestly, it even affected my decision to take it further, to do my Masters. Lord knows if I will ever go on to do a PhD, but if I do, I will still acknowledge that that particular person is partly to thank for that. I doubt that they even realize it.

    Its a funny thing, isn’t it? We all make our little marks on the world and sometimes don’t even have a clue. I know that I can recount things that made a big difference in my life that to others isn’t even a part of their own memory any more because it lacked the importance to be retained.

    Its just odd, I guess, the importance we place on some things that is insignificant, really, to another; the poem you showed your 6th grade teacher, who turned around and said ‘keep going’, even though they didn’t have to, or that friend you’d capture lizards and frogs with and then learned more about with. Did you know that the real name for the cane-toad is ‘bufo marinus‘? Even just single, blessed moments, like ripples in a pool (to use that tired old metaphor), I can name dozens that wouldn’t even start to be remembered by other people, but were significant to me.

    Funny, huh?