It doesn't matter if it's been recoloured, filled in with a texture, etc; they are all infringing.
Note: On 8 Jan 2018 I was made aware that there was some copyright infringement going on. I've taken down most of my Heartcat images. For now this page is only going to be about the infringement issues.
As most of you reading this know, I'm a cat person. I've been called Cat, Cats, ~cats, and ~littlecats for over 20 years now. I've been drawing cats as long as I can remember (back to the 60s). Since the original Heartcat, I've made dozens of variations, which used to be up here on the Heartcat page.
Seelie died of congestive heart failure in Jan 2013, and I removed the Heartcat page because it hurt too much to see.
But in January 2018, when I put it back up after 5 years, I learned that I'd missed one version that was still up as a non-working link from another page, and about 2015 someone had taken it, enlarged it, and uploaded it to clipart sites (including pixabay, openclipart, iconspng, and animalclipart) as public domain.
When I found this out, I contacted the sites with my info and documentation, and they removed it. Smaller sites have been harder to stop. Vendors who got it in good faith have been incredibly kind and understanding and removed it immediately, for which I'm very grateful!
Unfortunately I still find infringing items for sale when I check each month, so now (Dec 2018), I'm updating this page with more info and examples.
This a small image shows most of the infringing copies of Heartcat that I've found. if you see one anywhere, please give me a headsup so I can file a DMCA notice:
It doesn't matter if it's been recoloured, filled in with a texture, etc; they are all infringing.
IMPORTANT NOTE FOR AUTISTIC COMMUNITY: I am delighted to have other Autistic folx to create their own versions of Autisticat as a cat (black or otherwise!) with a neurodiversity bow tie and a heart shaped tail -- but please create your own unique cat, not a copy of Heartcat with a same or very similar stylised black silhouette and the tail going up and to the side in the same way as mine. The Autisticat versions shown in the image above were spread online by someone who downloaded the same pirated image and added only the bow tie, then claimed it was their original work which they were giving to the Autistic community on tumblr and releasing copyright -- which was not theirs to give away. They refused to make any public statement except for changing their artwork, and also refused to remove their original post/image; I had to report it to tumblr myself. :(
Heartcat is and has been and will be © Chris "Cats" Starfire 1999, all rights reserved.