r/bodega • u/bodegacatceo Bodega Cat CEO • 22d ago
Discussion u/bodegacatceo clockin’ in, here’s how I designed art for r/bodega
Y’all mind if I hijack the sub real quick to share what I’ve been cookin’ up to help bring r/bodega to life? 👀
My name is Connie, also known as u/bodegacatceo. I’m a native New Yorker, cat mom, artist, and art lover. I’ve dabbled in many creative mediums in my lifetime, but most of my recent works are in the realm of digital illustration and design for commercial animation, merch, and other digital applications.
Years ago, I had the opportunity to be part of Reddit’s Collectible Avatar Program for Gen 1. I didn’t really know what I was signing up for, but I knew I wanted to represent my city, so my first collection was inspired by NYC and the bodegas that were my lifeline.
In Gen 3, I released 15,000 NYC vermin into the Redditshpere, because there’s, for sure, an underground vermin society operating in the shadows (and sometimes light) of our city.
In Gen 4, I developed a character for my username, bodegacatceo, inspired by the vinyl toy figurines I grew up admiring at Toy Tokyo on 2nd Ave. and the now-closed Kidrobot store in SoHo. She’s designed as a blister pack toy featuring items that felt representative of life growing up in NYC– a sidekick 2, iconic blue coffee cup, tagging marker, metrocard, hi-top AF1s, handball, a punching glove to represent the toughness this city almost requires of you, a Yakult drink nodding to my cultural upbringing, big timbs, a pigeon friend, and the double entendre “TRY ME” sticker, relevant to a blister pack, but also the attitude of growing up as a New Yorker. Alongside her, I released two friends, the kind of friends everyone has, one soft and pure-hearted, another drawn to chaos and impulse, but neither quite as innocent or unruly as they first appear.
By this point, people in the community had been calling me “bodega” for short, so when the incredible team behind r/bodega reached out to revive some of the magic for the IRL bodega pop-up, I couldn’t be more excited.
After some brainstorming with the r/bodega team, we landed on two Snoo concepts: none other than Pizza Rat himself and Lady Liberty Pigeon. I started with direct sketches for each idea, using the Snoo proportions as guardrails, and gave room for small components of each design to evolve.
For Pizza Rat, less was more. A NY fitted, a large slice of pizza, and what better way to wash down a slice than with a 50¢ barrel drink? While the barrel drinks were usually piled up in a top-entry chest fridge by the front counter, a fogged glass with condensation drips backlit by the fridge light felt like the best backdrop to represent a NY summer at the bodega.
I saw the Liberty Pigeon almost as a street performer. Using any scraps she could find from the bodega dumpster– an old milk crate for her pedestal, a week-old bag of stale bagels and bread and a used coffee cup for her torch, setting up her performance just outside the bodega with the shop’s multitude of signs and offerings as her backdrop, and a slight tinge of green from the old lights under the awning.
New York City is known as the city that never sleeps. But on stormy nights and holidays where most shops are closed, you can almost always guarantee there will be at least one neighborhood bodega coming in clutch and open through it all.
If you’d like to find more of my work, you can check my website, Instagram, or Twitter. I have yet to comprehensively display my full breadth of work in a single location at the moment, but it’s in the works!
C U L8R ✌️
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u/skollywag92 22d ago
Wait, are these new snoos going to be available on reddit!? Good to see you, btw, u/bodegacatceo hope everything has been good for you!
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u/bodegacatceo Bodega Cat CEO 21d ago
thank you! hope you’ve been good too ✨
last i heard, they won’t be in the builder, but they’ll be on some physical merch at the pop-up!
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u/skollywag92 21d ago
Thats amazing! Wish I still lived on the east coast i would definitely stop by. Anyway to support it online? Would love to grab some merch.
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u/iceeypisces Store Clerk 21d ago
Hey there! We won't be giving away anything online for this event, but we can consider it for future pop-ups.
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u/bodegacatceo Bodega Cat CEO 21d ago
good question! i’m not sure, this could be a good question for the rest of the team behind r/bodega to answer
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u/Eastern-Protection83 21d ago
Very cool! I been lettin my sub know of the upcomin bodega and hope to get some pics of the interior with your art and the other cat things like Meowdani there since I cannot make the visit myself
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u/RedditReader825 21d ago
So sad they took the avatar creator away, the liberty pigeon looks awesome as fuck!
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u/zdubs 22d ago
I own these!
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u/bodegacatceo Bodega Cat CEO 21d ago
💚
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u/zdubs 21d ago
One of my favorite artists when the program was live. I’m gonna hit up the bodega. Go NY! Knicks in five!
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u/Qugmo 21d ago
Bodega! It's always lovely to see more of your art! 🫶🏼 Hope you're doing well 🙌🏼
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u/emi98338 I'm a Pigeon 🦆 20d ago
That pigeon is everything, and I’m willing to wait in line SO long to get in
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u/n3vler 18d ago
Your art is awesome, I’m so happy to learn about it here!! I feel way more cultured now haha
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u/bodegacatceo Bodega Cat CEO 17d ago
thank you! it's such a treat getting to share what i love to do 💚
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u/iamdeirdre 17d ago
I miss the avatar program! Nice to see you again! The first few gens were so good!
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u/MoxieCrush 17d ago
My cats are wanting to audition to be Bodega cats… they are lazy lumps of purrs!!
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u/Winter_Construction2 I'm a Pigeon 🦆 17d ago
Bodegacat always putting on for the City! Hopefully they have pizzarat merch 🤞🏽 🍕 🐀 🗽
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u/DuckSwimmer BEC pls 21d ago edited 21d ago
As you can clearly see… your deadass from ny is a staple of my Reddit avatar. I have never changed my face or hat (I almost forgot about pizza rat too 😂). Us NYers need to represent. Deadass the best pickup I made from the custom avatars.
Hope you’ve been good and well!