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A Dog a Day!
In this task I was asked to make an artwork every day for an entire week.
I decided that I needed to work on my illustrative skills, so I decided to focus my attention on my favorite animal, dogs!
I decided to do various different breeds of dogs, in order to challenge my shaping, texturing, shading and overal composition.
Comparing day 1 to day 7, there is a clear shift in the amount of shading used, and the variation in shape as well. Day 1 and Day 7 are the most different pieces on the entire page, showing a stark difference in depth, tone, shape and facial complexity
Each dog breed was chosen for a specific reason, both personally, and artistically, as they all offer varying challenges artistically in their different roughness, colors, tone, shape and facial structure that allowed me to experiment and test my limits in a fun and personally endearing way.
On this day, I decided to start out with my own dog. My older
boy, Roary. At 13 years old, he's been with me throughout all of
my important developmental years, and as such it felt wrong
not to have him be the symbolic and literal start to my journey
through my Batchelor of Design, and university in general.
Roary poses an interesting challenge, as he is a mixed breed of
a chihuahua and a poodle and therefor has beautiful intricate curls
that lace his body, that are extreemly difficult to convey at such a
small scale, particularly in digital art when pixels are a limiting factor.
I focused on making Roary's personality shine through, using an old painting
of him as my primary reference. His grumpy, but loving tendencies shine through with his lips and eyes. His shaping is simple, and his tone is simplistic, and the difference in skill between this first illustration and my final one is night and day.
Day one!
A familiar friend
Day two!
Beautiful Beagle
On day two, I decided to draw, what is possibly one of the
most iconic dog breeds of all time, the beagle! Based off of my
childhood best friend's dog, this dog also holds a lot of
emotional significance for me.
The beagle is a very good place to start, because their relatively
basic shape makes for much more simple shading and tone. This
allowed me to show my ability to give tone to a shape or object in a
relatively simple way. The folds in the ears are an interesting challenge as
they force you to rethink lighting and toning. Using darker shading
techniques to separate the variation in fur coloration was something I was initially skeptical as to whether or not it would be successful, but I do believe that decision made the artwork much more interesting and charming. I really wanted to have the vibe of a "well done cute sketch done in a notebook" throughout all of them, which is surprisingly challenging to achieve in a digital format
Day three!
Luxurious Labrador
Day three marked the occasion where I drew possibly the most
famous and iconic dog breed of all time, the Golden Labrador.
This dog was also based off one of my friends dogs, as almost
all of the dogs I designed were.
Labradors, especially younger ones, provide the interesting challenge
of having a very structured face, with a very prominent skull. This allows
for shading and curves to be integrated easily and results in a very nice
looking sketch. The floppy ears allow me to once again, experiment with folds in skin and as such practice with folds in fabric. However unlike the beagles, labradoors are much sturdier, and therefore their folds are made to be significantly tighter than that of the beagles
Day four!
Super Saint Bernard
On day 4, I decided to challenge myself by drawing a beautiful
St Bernard. This dog was also based off one of my best friends
dogs, but I underestimated the complexity of this dog breed.
Saint Benards are extremely floppy, and have a lot of loose skin,
and thus toning and shaping is immensely more complex. However I
found the challenge of this to be quite enjoyable, and the sketch came
out quite cute, and accurate to the dog that I was using as a reference.
This sketch is actually quite similar to my day two sketch, with the looser skin, and colour separation, but the Saint Bernard takes these traits and exaggerates them. The lighting and toning on this sketch was as formerly mentioned, complex. However I think the final result succeeded in illustrating the folds and floppy nature of Saint Benards.
Day five!
Gorgeous German Shepherd
Day 5 was the day where I decided to finally do the first, non
floppy eared dog of this challenge. The German Shepherd is
iconic, and were a very large part of my childhood, with my aunty
having a big German Shepherd who was one of my best friends.
Further more, this specific German Shepherd was based off of my senior
math teachers dog.
The German Shepherd is practically the polar opposite to the former breed
of the Saint Bernard. Whilst the Saint Bernard is floppy and chubby, the German Shepherd is slender, sleek and structured. The German shepherd held an interesting challenge, in that I couldn't rely on folds and extra lighting techniques in order to create the detail, or visual interest. Despite these constraints, the final sketch manages to capture the elegance of the German shepherd
Day Six!
Outstanding Oliver!
On this day I decided that I would treat myself to drawing Oliver,
my little puppy, my pride and joy. Oliver, similarly to Roary, has a
gorgeous, curly, fluffy coat. Unlike Roary (and unlike my day
1 drawing) Oliver's coat is jet black, and as such it is extremely
challenging to illustrate.
Lighting on a black coat is very difficult to
accomplish, as it is easy to accidentally make it appear grey, as opposed
to the intended deep black. However, this was why I chose to draw Oliver, as his unusual coat was a challenge that I was determined to overcome. In the end, I think I achieved the illusion of a dark coat, despite the majority of the coat being gray in coloration.
As it was on day one, the curls and curves are still quite difficult to achieve with a monochrome colour scheme, and in a digital format where pixel density and dpi is a large limiting factor as to how much detail can be put into an image. Despite this, I think the end result emulates my puppy's appearance well
Day Seven!
Dashing Dalmation
On the final day of this challenge, I decided to draw my
childhood favorite breed, the Dalmatian! The long snout and
spiritic placement of their dots was always so adorable to me, and
poses a particularly difficult challenge, with the colors juxtaposing
each other so drastically, it makes the shading incredibly difficult to
accomplish. With that said, I am very proud of the shading on this drawing
as it was certainly as complicated as I expected it to be.
This illustration allowed me to demonstrate my ability to create a juxtaposition in lighting and coloring. There is a clear separation between the black spots, and the white spots on the dalmatians face and it manages to enhance the eyes of the dog aswell.
A Dog a Day!
This task challenged my illustrative skills significantly. Believe it or not, most of the drawings took upwards of 5 hours to do, as I really wanted to create the illustrated in a note book vibe, as opposed to creating very straight, cartoony characters. Due to my disability I struggle heavily to write notes by hand, but I still adore the look of hand written notes, and now that I have these cute drawings to place on my page, I am inspired to create even more "drawing" assets for people just like me, who yearn for the hand drawn style, without any of the discomfort or difficulties that come with hand writing. A dog a day has turned out so well, because not only has it allowed me to expand and experiment with my illustrative skills, but I was able to create cute drawings to put on my notes, that I will now use forever more.
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