How to Draw a Medieval Cat

Cat with human-like face hides from dogs and hunters alike in a tree. Image is placed on a page of text from a medieval era book. — Image credit: A Hunter and Dogs Attacking a Treed Wild Cat by Unknown (1430–1440). Digital image courtesy of Getty’s Open Content Program.

Often in medieval art—though occasionally in renaissance art too—cats are depicted as a nearly anthropomorphic, a misconstrued reflection of the actual animal. These creatures hold the predominant features of a cat: a small, furry body, clawed feet, and pointy ears. However, in the process, the face of a cat is lost. Usually, the style medieval artists used gave cats human features, from protruding noses to eyebrows to human eyes. Unlike future art movements, medieval art was not focused on realism and was really quite cartoony. This makes them perfect for drawing! It doesn’t matter if you're a talented artist, or can only draw stick figures; if anything, the worse the drawing is, the better it gets. No matter where you’re at, this page will teach you how to replicate these freaky cats.

Steps for Drawing

Draw a cat's body.
- Of course, this doesn’t have to be a professional drawing, but if you have no idea where to start, check out wikihow for tutorials! When following these tutorials, make sure you follow all the steps EXCEPT the drawing of the face. Leave that for later.
Draw a human face
- Remember this doesn’t have to be realistic, just vaguely human-like. Make sure you get the broad strokes of a human face: eyes, nose, and lips.
Add extra details! Decide if…
- your cat has short fur, or long fur.
- your cat has any striping or patterned fur.
- your cat has a long tail or a short tail.
Now you're done! Look at that weird cat!

Other Things to Keep in Mind

Big Cats

Lion, leopard, rabbit, and elephant miniatures done in medieval style. — Image credit: Tractatus de Herbis by various unknown authors (ca.1440) from The Public Domain Review. Public Domain.

While house cats receive this anthropomorphization, this extends to big cats too. As seen in the picture above, these big cats possess the same realistic body with a human-like face. So if you want to draw a lion, leopard, tiger, or any other big cat.

Cat Research

Don’t be afraid to get creative! Most of these cats happen to find themselves in funny situations, weird poses, or with even more detailed faces. To learn more about how these cats came to be and see some more examples, check out ArtRKL’s article, “Mid-Evil Cats: Why Artists in the Dark Ages Made Them So Ugly.”