Not Your Average Game of Cat and Mouse: Armor by Jeff de Boer

Multi-media visual artist Jeff de Boer is famous for bringing together things that aren’t often associated with one another: cats, mice, and armor. That’s right, he builds small suits of armor for cats and mice and sells his delightful creations for a pretty penny, with mouse suits starting at $1,500 and cat suits from $12,000 all the way up to $25,000. The work is gorgeously detailed, as you can see in this gallery from Beautiful Life. The video below is an awesome introduction to de Boers and his work.

Video via OptikLocal on YouTube.

As young man keenly aware of his individuality and blessed with a trailblazing nerdiness, de Boer was inspired by things medieval, especially the idea of the warrior’s quest, and began by making suits for people for while still in high school. While studying jewelry design, he found he had a knack for small scale projects. Seeing an opportunity to define a genre, he created a line of armor for cats and mice. Despite authentic and meticulous design, this armor doesn’t actually get worn. A television show in Japan attempted to find a cat that would be a sport and wear a suit, but apparently cats aren’t particularly amused by armor!

His work is peppered with humor and puns: from the focus on cat and mouse games to his armor for business executives, which includes a line of chain mail neckties and a “helmet for saving face in business transactions”. He has also created ray-guns, rocket lamps and abstracts known as Exoforms, among other things. But the mouse suits hold a special place in de Boer’s heart.

The weak really are my symbol, because I suppose I started out life that way.  So building armour for a mouse seemed like the natural thing to do.  It was the one image that was correct. 

–Jeff de Boer

We love them, too.