The Making of Mewmiwmiw: How Mew Found Her Face

Before Mewmiwmiw had a katana, a class presidency, a milk-pudding vaccine theory, and a zombie problem, she had a much more immediate issue.

She did not have a face yet.

Mewmiwmiw Cato, usually called Mew, is the calm little center of Mewmiwmiw Takes Back the World. She is the sort of middle-school cat who can meditate before combat, insist on proper indoor slippers during an apocalypse, and apparently decide that pudding texture deserves attention even while Metro Mao is collapsing around her.

Her face needed the expression of a cat who had already assessed the disaster, accepted the disaster, and would now like everyone to stop shouting.

Mister Piddles Came First

Part of Mewmiwmiw’s appearance came from Mister Piddles, Casey Huang’s late Ragdoll-Persian cat.

He also had one of the more confusing naming histories in the household. Mister Piddles was originally believed to be female, so he began life as Miss Piddles. A later discovery required a small correction in official cat administration.

Miss Piddles became Mister Piddles.

As a kitten, Mister Piddles had pale fur with warm coloring across his cheeks and nose. Against all that white, the coloring made him look permanently blushed. That little detail stayed in memory.

Years later, when Mewmiwmiw began taking shape, the blush came back. Mew eventually developed her own very specific look: closed eyes, pointed ears, cheek tufts, a tiny mouth, and the bandana with MEW written across it.

Mister Piddles simply left a small fingerprint on the design. A peach-colored one.

Then Came a Lot of Cats on Paper

Mewmiwmiw did not emerge fully formed from the first sketch. There were attempts. Many attempts.

The head changed shape. The ears moved around. The bandana behaved badly. Some faces were too round. Some were too narrow. Some looked like they belonged to entirely different cats who had wandered into the wrong story world.

Eventually, the features started cooperating.

The closed eyes stayed. That became important because Mew is famously difficult to rattle. In her character file, she remains softly spoken during combat, continues questionable milk-pudding research during the zombie collapse, and has apparently interrupted operations because snowfall was “too peaceful to ruin.”

Of course she has closed eyes. Open-eyed panic would be completely off-brand.

Clip Studio Paint Entered the Situation

Once the paper version started looking like Mew, the character moved into Clip Studio Paint.

The digital studies made it easier to compare one version against another and catch the tiny differences that somehow change an entire face.

One bandana needed more curve. Another needed more width. The ears needed better proportions. The face also needed to stay simple enough to redraw again and again without turning every new illustration into a minor engineering project.

And because Mewmiwmiw is not the only cat in Maomao Country, the final design needed something even more important: she had to remain recognizable once everybody else arrived.

Watch the Timelapse

Watch the timelapse video to see Mewmiwmiw’s face evolve from the early digital studies into the final character design.

And Then There Was Mew

Eventually, the face stopped changing. The pointed ears worked. The bandana worked. The cheek tufts worked. The closed eyes absolutely worked. And the little blush stayed.

Mewmiwmiw finally looked like the cat who could calmly lead a group of middle-school students through the Zompocalypse while maintaining standards for tea, pudding, and household footwear.

Now she has a face.

Next, she needs to take back the world.