Steve and the neighbours

This post has two ‘prologues’:

The first is over 20 years ago, when we were living in mid-Mesa, AZ.  We had a trio of cats.  The first was Kliban, the result of a shameful mesalliance between a noble Siamese Queen and a charming rogue of an Alley Cat.  Kliban was a lovely light red and cream tabby cat, with the delicate face of a Siamese, oh, and the voice.  Well to be honest, he was all Siamese, except for the markings.  To anyone that didn’t know Kliban he was an utter terror, to the fortunate few who were accepted into Kliban’s ‘family’ he was utterly devoted, adoring, and protective.

When our niece, Kryssi, was born we were concerned about how Kliban would react.  He stared for the longest time at the tiny, blanket-wrapped bundle before he moved close enough to smell.  He finally crept close enough to identify the bundle as a human kitten, and not just any kitten, one of ‘his’ human’s kittens!

From that moment on he was the human kitten’s knight-errant.  He defended, groomed, and listened to the baby, when he heard the hungry or dirty cries he would run in search of the nearest member of his family to take care of the baby.

At the same time, Kliban had a couple of cat buddies that lived with us, Boynton and Steve.  Boynton was a long-coated grey tabby that had appeared at the door one day, and moved in as soon as the door was opened.

Steve, like Kliban, belonged to a neighbour to start with, but he chose us over his first home.  Steve was a snow-white short-coated cat with slanted yellow eyes; he was also about half the size as a normal cat.  Boynton was normal-sized and Kliban, well Kliban weighed about 35 pounds (2 stone plus!).

Steve first met us when his human, Y____, brought him over when he visited, Steve found our home so relaxing that he would go home as a limp scrap of white fur, draped over Y___’s arm like a towel over the arm of a waiter in a fine restaurant.  Y___ would look down at his kitten and say, “Steve!  What will the neighbours think??”

The second one is much more recent, last Christmas as a matter of fact.  Mum was given a 2010 Kitten-A-Day Calendar, and she has torn the pages off one-by-one.  I found one of the pages on the floor and it looked like Steve, and was draped over a roll on a cat tree.  I picked it up, began to laugh, and ran for Matt’s room.

I was so excited that I dropped the picture facedown on the floor.  Matt was leery so I picked it up, got it set right, and proudly displayed it while chanting, “Steve!  What will the neighbours think??”

Matt was completely delighted, with it, so I scanned the pic, and started playing with it in PSP.

I added the mask below…

So I then had this image to work with.

At which time, I reduced the size of the image, and renamed the image.  I also added the words I wanted to be a part of the finished product.  I used the font ‘Magneto’ and matched the colours to the colours I had used for the backgrounds I wanted to use.

I made my first background layer by opening a blank page in PSP, flood filling with the yellow from Steve’s eyes.  I then added another mask to the 1^st background.

For the base I used the background below:

The second layer was another blank image, this one was flood filled with a green from the background of the Steve image.

I then added a third mask to the green layer.

I resized it to fit the composition I had in mind.

I then assembled all the images into the composition I wanted, the font provided some needed motion to what was otherwise a rather static image.

I resized the entire image to a more manageable size.

And what was the first name I added to the tag??