Otto the Bat

Otto the Bat was hanging from the souvenir shop at Ueno Zoo in Tokyo while crowd-watching the Sunday throng of visitors. In a swift of a moment, Ilya spotted Otto and Dash pounced on the opportunity to add Otto to the travelling entourage.

In their enthusiasm to welcome Otto, Fox, Crockie and Badger had wanted to offer him some chow. But the trio had just earlier finished a packet of green tea-cereal flavoured chocolate and could find no other chow in their bags to offer to the new addition to the merry band.

It was a good thing that bats are nocturnal creatures who prefer to take naps in the daytime. Later that evening, Otto found himself chomping on a soy sauce-flavoured senbei cracker as a welcome gift from the trio.

The next day while waiting for Ilya to check his emails at a Tully's cafe near the hotel, Dash decided that she should make a couple of sketches of Otto while sipping on her cappucino. And after a sketch or two, Dash decided that the above style works best to capture the free-spirited character of Otto.

(Yes, if you are wondering, together with Annoyed-Looking Octopus, Fox, Badger and Crockie, Otto was also unceremoniously vacuum-cleaned by the new house cleaner about two weeks ago. Ehm. =_= Dash is still trying to assess the psychological damage on their psyche. The only creature that seemed fine with being vacuumed was the 2 foot Totoro in the house.)