I'm going to take a totally different approach.


Here are my assumptions:

At this point you are looking to produce photos that show the cats in their best light, rather that works of art that are to be printed on canvass and hung in a gallery.


You're not looking to go into the cat photography business as this point.

OK,

The two lights you have are probably just fine, but adding a third wouldn't hurt.

The lights don't have to be "photography" lights. In fact, the lights you have are little different than a shop light like you can get from your local home improvement store, save probably from the built in capability to take an umbrella.

I used home depot lights for my rescue (dog) photography and even my first couple of paid fund raising events, so they work just fine.

I'd recommend switching to the Compact florescent bulbs, but tungsten will work too. The main advantage to the CFL bulbs is that they don't get so hot so they are easy to handle.

Have you tried bouncing the light off the ceiling and or wall? What about a white piece of foam-board or construction paper held to the side of your subject?

I know nothing about your camera but if you can set a custom white balance based on the light you use, that would help with the "blue haze." If not, most of the photo processing programs out there have a white balance adjustment that is easy to use.

Shooting in RAW would be a good thing if you have the software to process raw files (I don't even know if your camera will shoot raw, so it may be a moot point).

Backgrounds:

You don't need anything fancy for this type of work.

A solid colored bed sheet (or piece of fabric from Jo Ann's) will work fine with something the size of a cat.
Depending on how you feel about the wrinklens and folds in the material, you could simply drape it over a couch or chair like a seat cover.

If you want to remove the folds and wrinkles you could use a kitchen table and a couple chairs to help stretch the fabric and hold it smoother.

Then, there is seamless background paper. I think a 4-foot wide roll would be plenty for cats (I've done it with dogs on a 4 foot roll too, but you have to be careful of the edges).

Hope all this helps.