by Amanda Friend
Previously, through Wonderful Machine’s print mailers, we’ve brought you the cutest cloned puppies and hardest partying hamsters any creative could ever ask for. Both of which were huge hits! And thus, the success of these pup/hammie promos got the cat lovers in the office wondering, what about us? Where’s our representation? But it wasn’t until we met with the cat-loving creatives at Duncan/Channon that we really got to thinking. So, armed with a pawsitively fun idea, we reached out to our member photographers, asking for their best cat and kitten photos. And while many delivered fantastic pictures (that we had an amazing time looking through), there was one photo that immediately stood out as the true king of the jungle.
Printed by Modern Postcard and sent out to 2990 creatives across North America, these regal kitties were captured by Eric Johnson of Bruton Stroube Studios.
Eric was kind enough to give us some insight into the making of:
For this image of a couple of brother cats hangin’ out, I was inspired by one of our studio’s digital artists who actually owned the cats. Yes, these are orange house cats that the owner had always wanted to have groomed in the “ lion cut” and photographed. I wanted to give them the look of a pair of majestic lions perched on a stoney outcropping in the savannah. Since my studio is nowhere near Africa, we had to come up with something that I thought was a stylish substitute: a warm colored faux boulder and a painted background.
Working with animals is always a bit of a challenge, but since the two cats were housemates, I was hopeful that we could get a shot of them together, which we did. Photographing cats does require quite a bit of patience, and I have to give credit to my roadie Mandi for being a good handler as well as assistant.
The post-production was handled by Jesse, the owner, and one of the several talented digital magicians that are on staff at our studio. You can check out the before image below to get an idea of the work involved in transforming these house cats into something a little wilder.
Before
After
If you’d like to check out all of our past print promos, see them here.
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