I saw this on that crew blog the Tcats team has and thought It interesting enough to bring to attention in a thread. It further explains the Twins’ differences from the other Thunderians.
"As we wanted to diversify the cat races (and other animals species). My approach was to give some tails and also make the ears different. For WilyKit and Kat, the points of their hair is actually the tips of their ears. That’s right, the whole part of their head is their ear. The fur along the side of their head is, well, ear hair. So when you see Kit tie up her ponytail it’s actually pinning her ears back. My hope was that we could use the animal characteristics of putting the ears back when scared or threatened or perking one up when trying to listen would be interesting for a more dynamic character trait. Especially for comedy.
While we’re here let me explain the tails a bit. Again, I thought it would be cool to introduce social class stigmas amonst the thunderan people. Having been born with a tail in some opinion would be considered less evolved. A birth defect if you will. But as a design element, like a cape, the tail can give a sense of direction on a stagnant pose or give a sense of direction or movement to the arc line of the pose. In real life, cats tails can tell us more about the emotion of the animal. For example if it’s sitting still the tail may be swatting with a thump (which from watching my cat) meaning it’s going to pounce in a moment. Or when it slumps shows the cat is relaxed.
There is also the play that the tail helps with the balance of the cat, since the kids are like the acrobats of the group, I wanted to keep that aspect. Hope this give some insight…
interesting. Still if he said they had big ears and a tail because it makes them look cute i would have accepted that as they do look cute, so far they are my favourite redesign(s) of all the Thundercats and I like their personalities as well
I have to say in the original show I didn’t pay much attention to them, I guess as a kid I gravitated toward the “tougher” characters. However in this version I’m totally enamored with Kit and Kat. They’re so endearing and cute, I love 'em!
Wilykat is definitely better in the new series in my opinion…
Wilykit is also really good… but in the old series she had a much better look of mischief in her… which also played out in that she was hotheaded and often messed around with Wilykat.
In the new series Wilykit looks a little like she has been degraded to a disneyprincess sort of character who looks up to her brother.
I hope they can put some grrr into her into the new series as well.
That’s basically what they said about the tails at Wondercon, but the ears is completely new info. going to make cosplaying them a bit trickier now… but I’ll find away around it
I’m still not following. There’s really no definition to indicate anything remotely earlike. I think I’ll just stick to the idea that they have really thick hair.
I’m not buying it. Not believable. Show me a cat in real life that has ears that look like Wilykat’s and maybe I might start buying it. But to say that, if Wilykit pulled her ear hair back as she does, you should see some kind of ear canal. It’s not believable what they’re saying.
Also not believable that a cat would put their ears back and leave them wide open and exposed.
A good fantasy needs to feel plausible. For example, Harry Potter. Wizards, magic, trolls, goblins, giants, house elves, dragons - none of these exist but you don’t think of that when you watch because the fantasy makes it feel believable.
In this fantasy, all the others we see have ears. I can understand some having tails and some not. But trying to explain the kittens ears like that?
Honestly I’m just attributing this to art style. I can accept that they’re really big ears with lots of fur in the ear canals. I agree that Kit’s “hair” probably shouldn’t be as round as it looks if it’s to be “realistic,” but it just wouldn’t look as good.
I think ultimately it’s not going to matter with Kit’s ears because they can’t move them like that if she has them pulled back. I kinda think she’d look a little cuter if she had ears like the other Cats poking out, kinda elf-like, and then just let Kat be the one who was born with the big, hairy ears. However, they can’t really give Kit ears like that now.
I do like that they got kid actors for them this time. Although I do like the kids voices in the OS even though they were done by adults. Although when they had the ThunderCubs, it was obvious that little Cheetara sounded like Wilykit. I didn’t think that as much though of little Tygra sounding like Wilykat. And I did love young Lion-O’s voice done by Larry Kenney.
