nefarious puppy for IF and a new painting style

The prompt for Illustration Friday this week is nefarious. I had several ideas, but this sentence kept popping up in my head, "The kitty wonders why everyone loves the new puppy, when clearly he is a nefarious little furball!" So I decided to illustrate the nefarious little furball:

This is a new digital painting style I've been playing with off and on for a few years. Below is a crop so you can get a better look at the style.

I especially like how the cat turned out, and how the image feels a lot like messy paint, but without the mess! This image is probably the best I've done in this style so far, or at least shows the most control over the final look of the image.

My favorite piece in this style though, is probably still Blue Moo, which was one of the first ones. I did it for the Blue Moon Ball at the SCBWI LA conference in 2009 (I printed this on a shirt that I wore to the party). It might be my favorite because of the party, or more likely, because I like to draw cows, so they are almost always my favorite images!