#(b/c of Bramblefake/The Imposter)

[boilingrain]

Rain Draws Squirrelflight, Leafpool & Bramblestar a Few Times

Since these three won my poll on which protagonists I should draw, here they are!

They don't get as much art per character as Ashfur did, because that was one character and this is three. Trust me, this was faster and more do-able

So anyways, first up is the Squirrel herself!

I draw Squirrelpaw generally softer & bouncier looking than I draw Squirrelflight, because at this point in time she's just a kid. She has not yet witnessed the Horrors(tm)

Even when I was reading The New Prophecy for the first time as a kid, I always imagined Squirrelpaw/Squirrelflight as having little round ears. Maybe it was just the "Squirrel" prefix, but that trait has always stuck with me and I've always drawn her with small ears.

This isn't a trait unique to Squirrelflight with my designs though! In her family alone, Cloudtail, Alderheart, Lionblaze and Nutmeg also have small, rounded ears (Princess might also have them, but I haven't decided yet. I also haven't decided if any of Cloudtail or Lionblaze's kits have the rounded ears, but at least one probably does)

I wish that she had kept her telepathy thing with her sister, I honestly thought it was interesting. It's a shame that the Erins quickly ran out of uses for it and decided to pretend it never existed. This may or may not be why in my rewrite of Warriors that exists in my head (like many others in this fandom), the telepathy thing didn't stop existing as soon as it wasn't super useful the plot anymore.

Admittedly, she's always been my favorite of the cats who journeyed to the sun-drown place (though tbf, most of them didn't really get any proper development, and the other one was Brambleclaw. I do have a soft spot for Stormfur and Tawnypelt, though).

Also I... forgot to color Squirrelkit's mouth. Whoops

The lady with a somehow worse taste in men than her sister, Squirrelflight!

Please Squirrelflight, you could've done so much better than Bramblestar. You deserve so much better than Bramblestar.

That aside, Squirrelflight has been one of my favorites for a long time. I just think she's a fun and interesting character

I think I said basically all of the things I was going to say when I was talking about Squirrelpaw, tbh. Also, much like a lot of the fandom for some reason, I don't really remember much of what happened during OotS? I don't think Squilf was particularly relevant during that arc, but it's possible she was and I just genuinely do not remember.

Why is Omen of the Stars basically just a void in everyone's memory. What's going on there.

Anyways, those aren't the final designs for Lionkit, Hollykit & Jaykit in that little doodle. Those are just kind of rough concept designs for them, and when I eventually draw them they'll probably look different. Also this is tortie Hollyleaf propaganda

If Lionblaze can be golden (though I typically draw him as cream) when both of his parents are functionally black (brown = black when it comes to cats. Also Leafpool shouldn't be a brown tabby anyways, because her dad is red and her mom is cream, which is a dilute version of red. I should stop talking now, before I get too deep into rambling about cat genetics), then Hollyleaf can be a tortie. (Jayfeather's fine btw. Gray is a dilute version of black, and both of his parents carry dilute. Crowfeather from Ashfoot & Leafpool from Sandstorm)

Okay, I'll finally shut up about cat genetics now

If Squirrelstar doesn't happen, I will eat my hat. I will eat several hats.

I actually don't even know how old Squirrelflight is currently in the books. It doesn't help that the Erins are weird with ages and don't seem to know how cats work.

For my purposes, I choose to believe that the Clans have been at the lake for at least a decade, making Squilf at least 10 1/2 - 11 years old, depending on how old she was when the Clans left the forest territories. And putting her around that age would, in fact, make her a senior (for a house cat, at least. Real feral cats don't typically live that long, but tbf the clans have medicine and stuff, so their life expectancy might be longer than regular feral cats. But cats are considered seniors once they hit 10 years old)

Also all things considered, she's probably been stressed as hell for a while and experiencing the Horrors(tm). So she gets some gray on her muzzle from a combination of age and stress.

Honestly she deserves to go on a nice, relaxing vacation where she doesn't have to deal with the Erin's less than good writing choices and shitty treatment of female characters.

Anyways Squirrelstar's leader mark is her nose spot becoming star shaped, because I love it when leaders are depicted with some sort of star shaped marking. I eat it up every time.

I'll talk more about leader marks and how I do them at a later time, though.

Leafpaw! My sweet baby Leafpaw!

My version of Leafpool is big and very fluffy, and you can't stop me from drawing her that way

Right off the bat, you'll probably notice that her design has changed a bit from the original concept design that I posted, as she's now a tortie instead of a regular brown tabby. Admittedly, a big part of why she's a tortie now is that I just love torties & calicos haha

If anything, her name makes even more sense now, because the combination of brown and orange makes her look more like leaves during fall! :)

Why's Leaf a tortie but Squirrel isn't? Maybe Squirrelflight is a secret tortie, or maybe she's trans, who knows? (The actual answer is that I had already finished all the Squilf art when I randomly decided to have Leaf be a tortie, but I didn't want to go back and change Squilf's design because I love it)

I hope it's obvious that I love Leafpool a whole lot

Once again, Holly, Lion & Jay's designs in this are not their final designs and when I eventually get around to actually drawing them, they'll definitely have at least a few design changes.

Also it's really hard to draw tiny little newborn kittens on a small scale like this.

Anyways I've never actually read Leafpool's Wish, so I don't know if it proves or disproves what I'm about to say, but I think that with how much Leafpool loved her kits, I believe that she would've raised them herself if she had the ability to.

I also personally believe that if Squirrelflight hadn't decided to take in the kits, or if Leafpool had decided that she wanted to raise her kits instead of her sister doing it, Thunderclan wouldn't have done shit about it. I mean, she definitely wouldn't be as trusted as she was before, but I don't think she'd lose her job (at least at first) or be exiled. She was their only medicine cat, they literally couldn't do shit about it. Additionally, she's Firestar's daughter and also related to Sandstorm and Squirrelflight, who are both individually forces to be reckoned with.

She'd probably have to train an apprentice as soon as possible and then have to step down from her role as medicine cat, but I definitely don't think she'd be exiled or anything.

Leafpool but she sparkles

For anyone who didn't see my Ashfur post, some of the rules I have for Starclan designs is that Starclan cats are lighter in color and have sharper & more star shaped markings compared to when they were alive. They also have their appearances change over time in a way connected to their names, which is why Leafpool is starting to grow leaves out of her neck fluff.

Additionally, Starclan cats will typically have a sharper shape, to go with their sharper markings. You'll notice that while she has the sharper markings, Leafpool's fur is still soft and rounded.

I feel like Leafpool's whole thing with her trial would affect her Starclan appearance, but that's not really something that results from a trial, so her not becoming sharper in shape is the exception rather than the rule.

I didn't design a Dark Forest Leafpool, but I imagine that the changes she'd get there (because my DF cats have their appearances change based on their crimes) would be that she would still grow leaves out of her body, but she'd also grow feathers and would have particularly long and sharp claws that she wouldn't be able to sheath. Each of these things is representative of the "crime" that she was sentenced for (even though Spottedleaf, a Starclan cat, literally encouraged her to do that)

The leaves would specifically be holly leaves (representing, well... Hollyleaf), the feathers would be a mix of jay and crow (representing Jayfeather & Crowfeather) and the claws would represent Lionblaze (though for this one I went with something meant to represent his power instead of his name. With Leafpool being a medicine cat, I think it fits)

If Leafpool doesn't give Squirrelstar a life we riot

The bramble man

Honestly even as a kid Brambleclaw wasn't exactly my favorite character. I wasn't really old enough to really process how he sucks, honestly I just kind of remember thinking that he was boring. Maybe that's just the fact that I've always liked Squirrelflight & Leafpool way more than him, but I just didn't really care for his POV chapters during The New Prophecy

I did love the Hawkfrost scene, though. Because I wasn't on any warrior cats forums or anything as a kid, I didn't get spoiled about stuff like Hawkfrost's death or the Fire Scene (along with many other important scenes), so I think those scenes hit way harder for me.

When I was a kid reading Po3 for the first time, I genuinely didn't even suspect that Squirrelflight and Brambleclaw weren't Hollyleaf, Lionblaze & Jayfeather's biological parents. So you can probably imagine how shocked little elementary school me was

But anyways, yeah. While I didn't hate Brambleclaw as a kid, I just didn't really care about him.

On another note, my Brambleclaw/star design is pretty similar in shape to my Lionheart design (just with extra toes and not as big of a mane). Since Lionheart was Goldenflower's brother, I thought it would be interesting if while everyone else just saw Tigerclawstar in Bramble's appearance, Goldenflower didn't.

My Tawnypelt design has a more similar shape to Tigerclawstar, though.

Bramblestar!

Leader marks are usually an already existing marking that becomes star shaped (like how I made Squirrelstar's nose spot star shaped), but sometimes a new marking entirely will appear as the leader mark.

While I easily could've made one of the spots on the backs of his ears into a star shaped for his leader mark, I have plans relating to Bramblefake/The Imposter and Bramblestar's mark.

You'll see said plans in a moment, but what I will mention about it is that my Ashfur design has a broken heart shaped marking on his chest.

On an unrelated note, Bramblestar should have someone else name warriors for him because great Starclan is he bad at names.

There's totally nothing wrong with Bramblestar, what possibly could've made you think that

Anyways, a combination of the whole being possessed thing & Ashfur's broken heart marking have caused Bramblestar's leader mark to "break". It actually doesn't get fixed after he's no longer possessed, his leader mark stays that way.

The Imposter's fur is darker and droopier than regular Brambkestar. I don't have a real reason for the darker color (other than that it looks cool), but the fur is Ashfur's doing.

Another thing that is Ashfur's doing is the blue pupils. Bramblestar is supposed to have red pupils (due to him training in the Dark Forest in TNP), but being possessed kind of overrides that and so The Imposter's pupils are blue. They do turn red again after Bramblestar is no longer possessed, though.

Honestly, I still kind of wish that the theory that Bramblestar had rabies was canon. The possession was interesting, but I don't think rabies has even been mentioned in the series. Which is a bit surprising considering that it's basically a soap opera with cats, but then again the Erins sure do love taking the opportunity to ignore possible interesting new plots. Why do anything interesting when we could instead have a billion more badly written romances

But I will admit, it was interesting to have Ashfur come back to be awful again. I'm still mad that he got let into Starclan after trying to kill at least 4 people because he "loved too much" and that gave him more of an opportunity to pull this shit. They absolutely butchered Yellowfang after she died. Not really even recognizable as the same character as her living self.

I'm not doing more art for this post. I'm tired and I'm going to go get some sleep. Tomorrow I will get back to work on hypokit requests, but for now it is time to put away my art supplies and lay in bed.

#warrior cats #squirrelpaw #squirrelflight #squirrelstar #leafpaw #leafpool #brambleclaw #bramblestar #ashfur #(b/c of Bramblefake/The Imposter) #warrior cats art #rain's art corner