Cats the Musical Fanart

Misto by Deisi by ~Unashamed-Felinity

What is Fanart

Fan art or fanart (for the few visiting this page who don’t know!) is artwork that is based on a character, costume, item, or story that was created by someone other than the person creating the fanart. It is usually done by amateur fans who join groups or forums on the internet, where their artwork is published. Cats the Musical Fanart is therefore artwork inspired and based on the musical “Cats” and created by talented fans, who have a common passion.

This common passion is expressed in the artwork, the kind of names they give themselves and the language they use when they review their peer’s work. Cats, as a long running musical has a large number of fans.

Deviantart (the website) are very particular about copyright matters and set high standards. The name is interesting. It may be that the term “deviant” was chosen to indicate that they (the founders) are different and/or artwork posted on their website is “derivative”

Usually, artwork based on an original work can be controlled by the original author. It seems however that if the new artwork is derivative (meaning I presume different and freestanding despite being based on another authors work) then it circumvents the copyright problem. It can then be displayed and distributed without problems. The word “deviant” seems to be a variant of the term “derivative” and therefore deviant fanart is outside the control of the original author. Although this is a grey area.

The picture of the three cats © Ignacia. This image of her artwork is downloadable with her permission. It is called “Given to Rove” and is of Munojerrie and Rumpleteazer (from Cats) and “the other female character is my own OC”.
This artwork is © Michaela Olofsson. Her Deviantart website name is “~Kvitter”. Michaela is Swedish. She says this about her cats the musical fanart,

“Background done in photoshop elements and then colored with prisma pens”.

Fan fiction (also spelled fanfiction and abbreviated to fanfic or occasionally FF or fic) is a “relative” of fanart and the two sometimes work together, for example in Warrior Cats forums.

It is a broadly-defined term for fiction about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creators

With Electra, Jemima runs a website about Cats the Musical called the “Jellicle Junkyard”. They call it the “home of the internet Jellicles”.

The website contains a variety of things to see and do including images, role play games (RPG), fanart and fanfiction based on the musical. The 2 fanart images at this point are ©Jemima.

This is a really nice, well turned out website. I am sure that any Cats fanart fan will know Cats the Musical far better than me so here’s a little bit about Andrew Lloyd Webber and his production company The Really Useful Group (RUG).

Did you know that on the home page of the RUG they talk about copyright issues! Beware fanartists! I think though that fanart is accepted by RUG as it actually promotes the musical and perpetuates it. He should be rewarding you guys!
Cats as you know is the worlds longest running musical ever opening in 1981. Nearly as successful is Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical The Phantom of the Opera, which opened in 1986.
Mr Webber owns 7 London Theatres.

Anybody associated with him have probably become millionaires as he has the midas touch. His brother is a very successful cellist. Like most highly successful and talented individuals he started young, learning the violin at aged 3. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat was commissioned believe it or not by a preparatory school’s director of music and was initially of 15 minutes duration. It was extended to 2 hours when it was commercialized.Mr Webber went to Oxford University at aged 16 to study music but having met Time Rice (with whom he subsequently went on to produce three successful shows) dropped out after one year.

A bit about Cats the Musical – it has been played in twenty countries and 250 cities, pretty much all over the world. You know what is really important about the musical. It’s this – it’s about cats. Sounds obvious but perhaps that it partially forgotten. Cats are very popular creatures, loved by hundreds of millions of people all over the world. Cats cross boundaries and maybe that’s why Mr Webber thought of making a musical about cats, to help him create a success.

Got some Cats The Musical fanart, good, bad, learning? Please scroll down to see submissions.

If you like to make fanart based on Cats The Musical then maybe you could share it. Other might learn from it. You might learn from others. We’ll all enjoy it.

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