A Pet Portrait Rug, From Photo to Finished Piece

Hruma is a grey shorthair cat, and she has sat for two portraits in our studio: one realistic, one broken into patches of bright colour like an Impressionist painting. Both began the same way: as an ordinary photograph sent by her owner. This article follows that path step by step. It is the most common commission we receive, and the distance between “I emailed a photo of my cat” and “there is a rug of my cat on the floor” is shorter and more methodical than most people expect.

One clear photograph

Everything starts with the picture you send. It does not need to be a studio shot; it needs to be clear, so the drawing can be worked up from it. Any animal a clear photograph exists of can be tufted: the portraits in our catalogue are of real cats and a real horse, and the same process works for dogs. At this stage you also tell us the direction you want: a portrait of the face, or the whole animal, tail and paws included.

The photo becomes a drawing

Nothing is printed and nothing is filtered. Kseniia Derr redraws the photograph by hand: for animal portraits the fur textures and the eyes are rendered in pencil first, and the drawing then moves into Photoshop, where it becomes an exact vector mockup that fixes every colour and detail of the future rug. Yarn shades are matched to your pet’s actual coat, and we show you how the palette reads in daylight and in evening light, so the rug you approve on screen is the rug that will exist.

Play

This is the stage for changes. You see detailed mockups and can ask for revisions until the design matches your expectations. Once you approve the final mockup, we begin tufting the rug. Further changes are not technically possible after tufting starts.

Deposit, frame, tufting gun

A 50% deposit confirms the order. The approved drawing is traced onto a textile base stretched on a frame, and then the tufting begins: a hand-held tufting gun drives acrylic yarn through the cloth, colour field by colour field, following the traced lines. Pile height is managed as the work goes, and the fittings are prepared for the rug’s future life: a non-slip backing if it will live on the floor, mounting loops on the reverse if it will hang as textile wall art.

Shearing: where the fur appears

The finish that makes a portrait read as fur rather than coloured felt begins only after the adhesive backing has dried. We then remove the rug from the frame and shear it in several stages. First, we level the entire pile and remove excess yarn. Next, we shape every detail with a trimmer and finish it by hand with scissors. When shearing is done, we send final photos and video for your approval, the remaining payment is completed, and the rug ships free across the EU and to the US with a tracking number. A 7-day guarantee covers any transit issues.

Realistic or painterly, and any animal

Hruma’s two rugs show the choice you make at the start. The realistic portrait follows the photograph so closely that, laid next to the source picture, it reads as an optical illusion. The painterly version keeps the geometry of the muzzle and eyes true but sets the colour free.

The same commission works past cats and past faces. Prince the horse became an 84 × 84 cm portrait on fields of blue, yellow and pink; Lucian the cat was tufted at full length, 150 × 82 cm, well past life size.

Size and timing

The standard portrait format is 84 × 84 cm (33 × 33 in); the full-body format shown above is 150 × 82 cm. Because every design is drawn from scratch, any size can be ordered: the price follows the area, and the quote comes before any work begins. (For what a piece like this costs against the rest of the catalogue, see how much a custom tufted rug costs.) A portrait takes two to three weeks to make, plus five to ten days of delivery.

The finished examples, both of Hruma’s rugs, Prince and Lucian, are collected on the pet portrait rugs page. When you are ready, the custom order page is where the photograph gets sent. We reply with a quote and a lead time within 24 hours.