Mascot Character Info Sheet

Van's Character Design Sheet Notes!
(Skip if you just want to read about the character, but there's useful info here too.)
I. Happy Van, her default smile, if she's especially pleased, her fluffy tail flicks side to side. This is a good place to note, that I had fun giving Van random eye light reflections. In normal "happy" mode, when she's not being a srs adult in other words, it looks like a star, in other places it changes shape.
II. Summer Casual Van! Happy that you've finally arrived, she swings around to meet you. Even if she's dressing down, I want to give the impression that she's stylish, and likes to spend money on her appearance. So just black t-shirt, black denim shorts, the socks are kind of sheer stocking material though. The little diagram next to her on the left, shows Van's "I give up! Its too hot!" hairstyle which is basically just "tie everything up in a big fluffy ball." Van's got a few options for her fur, how high it reaches, or if it exists, here she has it below the knee and below the elbow.
III. Kinda sexy Van with her hair down, and her clothes misplaced. If she can't be bothered with the lingerie she usually prefers, especially in summer, she just wears comfy undies and no bra. To swim, she wears a black string bikini. She's got a lithe, but strong body, with wide but delicate shoulders. She has a thigh high, over elbow fur style here, and I kind of prefer this one if she has to have fur.
IV. Oh, another sexy Van, this time the "she has a pretty, long, lithe back, and a great ass" view. She's doing up her hair here, which is predominately just brushing out the kinks and then clipping it into a ponytail with the cloisonné clip that's never far away from her. This is the no-fur style.
V. This one was meant to be "Summer Formal" Van, buuuut, it's probably too risqué for formal formal wear. Van went through the effort of trying to tame her hair with a straightener for whatever event she's being forced to attend hers, so that's why she's wearing her hair loose and her clip on a necklace as a chocker. She's pushing up her boobs here. This is one of her more serious faces, and it mirrors the summer scene earlier. Here she is less ok about being made to wait and then be late because of it. This sketch has the highest fur style, or the "GATE" style, that is, it goes up to the groin, and over the shoulder too.
VI. A pensive/sad looking Van sketch, for these I ditch the star shaped highlights, make her eyes look a bit sharper, try to emphasise her upper eyelashes, and don't add any bottom ones in.
VII. A silly Van, being silly. Oh yeah, before I forget. She has a beauty mark below her left lip, coz I like them.
VIII. Even though Van gets super fluffy in the winter, she's still really weak against the cold. That said, she loves wearing cable knit clothes, so it balances out. You can't really tell here, but Van has enough softness to her, that tight fitting things like stockings and straps will indent into her flesh, especially, or rather, primarily her thighs and ass.
IX. It looks like you've just made Van's week, with her eyes lit up like that. Oh yeah, I didn't forget to shade one of her eyes, she just has heterochromia iridium. Left eye's amber, right eye's blue, her right ear is also the same orange as that that is found on her tail. More on this later.
X. Flirty Van, with hearts in her eyes and everything. Told you the highlight changed shape. You can clearly see her beauty mark here, and her sharpish canines.
XI. "Are you a fucking idiot?" look, it gets used moderately often. Her ahoge has a life of its own, much like a certain Arararagi.
XII. Super srs face time. I've been working for hours: the face. My connecting flight's been delayed twice: the face. My parents are going to stop depositing money in my account and demand that I come home: the face. I actually have to start at the job my father has planned for me, from entrance to retirement: the face.
XIII. Colour time! These two oranges are for the lighter and darker stripes of orange on Van's fluffy tail, and for her right ear. See a picture of a Turkish Van.
XIV. The kinda correct amber colour for Van's left eye.
XV. I'd like a stronger blue than this for Van's right eye, but not too strong.
XVI. Van's skin tones! Normal light, and shadows, basically. She tans super well and leaves sexy tan lines too.
XVII. These Whites/grey/creams are for Van's hair, and the rest of her fur, including the underside of her tail. Once again, see a picture of a turkish van, they're the best. I briefly considered having orange streaks through her hair too... But that probably wont be necessary, nor would giving her an orange paw to off set the orange ear. Probably.

VAN VON LÖWEN BASIC INFORMATION

Born: sometime around '91.
Height: 160cm-ish w/o heels on and ignoring her ears.
Cup Size: C to D.
Weight: Not telling.

Quick Intro:
I wanted to make a super fluffy Catgirl, based on one of my favourite breeds of cat (Turkish Van). I tried to balance out the opposite sides of a cat's personality, the aloofness, and the affectionate, in her personality and description. I wanted something slightly more interesting than just a moéblob character, so I went for "stuck between two worlds, and not sure if she belongs to either" kind of feeling, which I feel is pretty relatable.
This is just my thoughts for the character, so its ok if you like the design but not the personality, it'll probably get tinkered with as time goes by.

General Character Description:

Personality wise, these days, she could best be summed up as “wastefully energetic, eternally curious, and innately fluffy”, cunning and mischevious, in a cattish way, is the closest she gets to maliciousness. The instant friend type, if only because growing up she wasn’t ever reminded that she needed to watch what her mouth was doing, she ends up dropping all pretenses of formality immediately upon liking someone. Van's the type who doesn’t think twice about cracking out instructions, that she innocently expects to be done. A cat's expectation of being looked after at their demand in other words.

Alone with a lover/close friend she’s a much more quiet girl, an utter lap-cat, attention hungry.

Sexually, she has boundless energy, she wont settle down unless she and her partner(s (male or female)) both cum at least twice. She’s always keen to try new stuff in bed too.

But, despite that, she was near the top of her class at her elite university, (major in international law, minor in middle eastern languages, (she can speak a handful of world languages to various degrees of fluency)), and was a moderately famous figure on campus, possesing a cat-like grace, a sharp intellect, and a cool, collected personality, always dressed in expensive clothes. The picture of a minor aristocrat, on track to the diplomatic corps. The current happy-go-lucky Van would be nigh unrecognisable to some of her peers whom idolised her.

She can turn that part of herself on and off at will, but she doesn’t much like the taxing nature of repressing her natural instincts towards fluffiness. But nowadays she wonders whether her current fun-loving self is just a reaction to the expectations placed upon her by her parents, just an affectation, a venting of stress from the demands of her alotted future, (as her parents think,) or whether the fluffy girl is the honest one.

So currently she’s doing anything possible not to think too much about that, and has managed to turn a 3 month, post graduation vacation into an entire year of testing her parent’s patience and financial support.

If she’s honest she’s not exactly proud about acting like a spoiled kid, but not even being sure of who she is, as she leaves the rigid structure of university life, staring down a pre-set career thats waiting for her, she doesn’t really know what she wants.
Even as she’s constantly aware that this holiday has to end someday.

“I’m going to be a diplomat anyways, so why don’t I be your mascot~? It sounds fun!”

Hobbies: Water sports. Wait. “Aquatic ativities”, swimming, diving, scuba and surfing; shopping; travelling; drinking; fucking; sleeping.
Favourite song: “Cat People” Bowie, or “Catman” The Birthday Party (she likes doing a strip tease to these songs).



Slightly More in Depth Backstory for Van von Löwen:

Her mother was a Sunni Iranian Kurd, her grandfather a successful business man in Tehran, having many contracts with German businesses. As it was, Van's mother, as a young girl, was struck by how handsome a young diplomatic clerk at the German embassy was, and may have nursed a small crush, without much realistic hope of its success.
With the '79 revolution, the clerk left for the safer home posting, and Van's grandfather swiftly lost a lot of commerce. With the imminent failure of the Kurdish revolution in the north, Van's grandfather felt the wind turn, and relying on old business friends, stole out of Tehran and left for Germany, with his family eventually following when safe passage was secured.
Low and behold, many years later, Van's mother, and the then bachelor Herr Von Löwen met once again on the streets of late 80's West Berlin. Enchanted by her cat-like grace, they quickly married, and after some difficulty, beget the young Van.
Born into a minor aristocratic family, who's diplomatic service was more praiseworthy than any other element of the family's history, Van was expected to pick up the family tradition as it were.
As a young half-German/half-Kurd, she had a hard time fitting in anywhere, and already possessing a whip crack intelligence at much too young an age, quickly found she had trouble acclimatising anywhere, always feeling out of place. By the time she was about to begin primary school, after already exhausting her parents and her supervisors at kinder, Van was taken to see her paternal grandmother who lived on the family holdings in what could be called the mid-step between a house and a down in the heel schloss.
Intimidated by the old woman, her hair once blonde, now grey, bound in a tight bun, dressed in the fashion of a widower of decades before, seeming to inhale and exhale the decrepitude of the old house around her, Van stood quietly, ears folded, tail low, as blue eyes that still retained their crystal clear pierce appraised her. Then finally, almost imperceptibly, crinkled in the briefest of loving smiles. Rummaging in an old jewellery box, old hands finally found their prey, triumphant, Van's grandmother pulled out a beautiful royal blue and gold cloisonné hair clip, an heirloom, and bestowed in on the little catgirl, and telling her that she would always, completely and utterly, have a home in the von Löwen household.
From there Van's demeanour changed, not so much for better or for worse, rather she became adept at projecting a façade that could create for her a space where ever she went, always been taken seriously, taken in to confidence, and asked for much advice about many topics.
Then, almost without warning it seemed, highschool ran out from beneath her feet, and she found that she had chosen to go to, and be accepted into a prestigious university almost on auto-pilot, and from there, Van steadily began to question what she was actually aiming for for the first time, that without the protection of childhood she had nothing to defend herself against the responsibilities of the adult world.
And as she travels around the world, backpacking, meeting people, having trysts and small, short romances, she thinks she's at least getting closer to that answer.



Random Van fun facts!
Winter cause her floof volume to double, its real hard work. She makes the closest friend near her comb her hair for her, even if she has to turn up on their doorstep at 6am.

She’s generally well aware of her background, but is the type to have conversations like “Bacon is pork?” or “Tonkatsu ramen is haram?”
She’s not very good at religion.

She speaks english with a perfect received pronunciation accent, she could've graduated from an english public school rather than the exclusive boarding school she attended.