Meet Atlas, the adorable Scottish fold, and CleoCatra, the Scottish longhair whose owner decided to spice up their adorable photos. Not that they needed any more improvements because both are adorable, but what he did is surely a nice and fun addition.
So, their Instagram was recently graced with a selection of photos where Atlas and CleoCatra were photoshopped with a hand and a piece of paper with a random facial expression right in front of their cute fuzzy face, making a pretty believable impression that both the chonk and the longhair are actually reacting in a kooky way.
Atlas has been living for 2.5 years now in Melbourne, Australia together with her human companion Adrian (with whom Bored Panda got in touch for an interview) and her lovely sister CleoCatra.
The facial expressions are just different eyes and mouths. You know, the angry stare, the “are you serious?” face, the traditional smile, the frown, the goofy face, the anxious face, and all sorts of other expressions. And then your brain does the rest, making it look like a very believable expression that any cat could pull off.
It’s like Disneyfying your dog with a Snapchat filter, except a bit more crude in the execution, but still hilariously adorable.
“I’m always looking for ideas for creating creative posts and came across an image online with a white face mask with different facial expressions on it,” explained Adrian on the inspiration behind the photos. “This gave me the idea to do the white strip facial expressions focusing on the mouth and eyes as these are the most expressive parts of the face.”
We've asked Adrian to tell us a little bit about the two lovely cats:
"Atlas is a joy to have around the house. She’s very quirky and loves to lay on her back with her paws up in the air. She loves to follow me around the house and is always curious and needs to know what I’m getting up to. She enjoys a good pat and kitty massage followed by a long cat nap."
He continued: "CleoCatra is actually Atlas’s biological sister but from a different litter. Their mother is a Scottish Fold and father a British Shorthair—which is the ethical way Scottish Folds should be bred, hence why Atlas has folded years and CC doesn’t. Atlas looks like her father, but inherited her mother'ss folded ears and CC looks like her mother, but inherited her father\ss straight ears. CC is the typical little sister and loves to follow Atlas around. Atlas loves her little sister and you will often find them cuddling together."
"CC is very much a lap cat and loves human attention and she is so loving and smoochy. She is full of curiosity and you’ll often find the two of them following you around the house or waiting at the shower door. They both enjoy a good pat and human attention. CC is a little cheekier and will often wait around the corner for her big sister ready to pounce."
Atlas’ and CleoCatra’s Instagram is chock-full of goofy cat things. Everything from sleeping to striking kooky resting poses to videos of Atlas staring at the ceiling to CleoCatra meowing adorably to even more hilarious photoshopped goodness. With over 1,700 posts, the two have amassed 121,000 followers.
“It’s sometimes hard to get a cat to pose the way you want it to for a photo, so I always make sure I have my phone/camera at hand. There is, however, trickery behind the facial expression images of Atlas and CleoCatra,” explained Adrian. “The snippets of card and hand have been photoshopped in after I took the picture as it would be too difficult to match the same pose with different mouths and eyes each time. The eyes and mouths are modified from online clip art to suit the facial expressions. It was just a matter of working out which expressions worked best.”
The felines have a substantial amount of followers on his Instagram, so they are no stranger to fame (as much as cats can be used to it), but this particular set of photos drew the internet’s eyes like candy. When they hit Imgur, it managed to receive over 127,000 views with almost 3,000 upvotes.
One commenter joked that Atlas is “one moody cat”, while another one said “now do one with ears”, poking fun at Atlas’ breed that is characterized by cute folded ears. Yet others wish there were more expressions. Speaking of which, we’ve asked Adrian if he’ll be doing more of these and he said this:
“The facial expressions were a hit, but I try not to repeat the same theme over and over again. I’m always coming up with fun and creative content so stay tuned to see what we do next.”
Be sure to follow Atlas and CleoCatra on their Instagram for more cat mischief and goodness. But before you go, let us know what you’ve thought about this? Do you think the internet needs more of Atlas’ and CleoCatra's facial expressions? Let us know in the comment section below!
