Work In Progress: Part 2

Have now added Alana to the sketch

Work in progress

Xmas theme sketch of the dogs that we are planning to put on some home made xmas cards.
Work in progress...

Bears and Puppies

Did this sketch for a friend last week.

She had requested the inclusion of some bears. I like it,

I think the bears and puppies play well together :)

A bit more progress...

Spent a bit more time on Rover tonite...

Rover the Dogmonaut

Wanted to do a personal rendering project. Don't get a lot of chance to spend time rendering on image at home so i thought i'd take the opportunity to start on one tonite.
Have completed the intial sketch and started the render. Here's the progress so far.

Just went and saw Pixar's UP

I just went and saw Pixar's UP, and wow!
I thought after Wall-E it would be a hard follow up so i went in prepped for disappointment.
How i could have ever doubted the brilliance of Pixar is beyond me. I'm hesitant to make comparison's to Wall-E as i am still riding on the euphoria of UP, but i must say - WOW!
Pixar have shown yet again that they are truly in a league of their own when it comes to character and storytelling.
And as a dog fan I was in heaven. I think Dug may be the c[IMG][/IMG]utest animated dog character i have ever seen on film. Simply brilliant and utterly hilarious.
If you get the chance go and see this film immediately. I saw it in 3d which was fantastic but i'd have to say the story and characters are that good that without the 3d this is simply brilliant.
Needless to say i came home inspired and scribbled up this Dug-inspired sketch. I did mine a little younger and thinner than the movie character.
Coloring a little darker too.

Me Mate

Dug these up out of my folio archives. A few years back the company i work for dabbled in pet toy and accessories. These illustrations were done for an ocka Aussie dog accessory brand we developed called "Me Mate"
I really enjoyed this project as I developed a style in complete contrast to anything i had done before.

More inspiration...

I was pretty chuffed the other day when a kid sent in a fan letter for pawphans and some of their own drawings. I was even more chuffed when just a week or so later when another one came in from a different kid.

Seeing this stuff from talented kids is so inspiring.

What makes it so special is also that of all the brands i have worked on here at work, Pawphans is probably the closest to my heart. It contributes to a great cause and its all about dogs.

As with the previous kid i also did a bit of a skecth to go out with the company response. I'd love to put the kids stuff up here but i'm not sure if i can so for the meantime we'll have to settle for my humble efforts.

Why we do what we do

Its been a while since my last post.

Unfortunately have been bogged down with work commitments and other projects and haven't had the chance to draw any of my favourite puppy pictures.

I was inspired tho the other nite after a day at work. That day my company had received a bit of fan mail for the pawphans i design where a young twelve year old kid had sent a letter saying how much they loved the product and they enclosed some drawings of their own. They were fantastic and i had to say were the highlight of my week - if not even more so.

After a partucularly frustrating week this reminded me why so many of us do what we do - the warm feeling you get when you get to see the joy that a young kid gets from your product.

It put a lot of things in perspective for me and really made my week extra special.

That nite i actually went home and sketched up this pic for our customer service department to send back to the kid. I guess it was a bit of a thankyou for reinspiring me.

I'm hoping that i can one day show the kids drawings on this blog (will have to seek permission first tho).

Hopefully my next post won't be so long a wait next time...

Puppy Profile: Holly

One of my fellow illustrators, Brad, has a young Kelpie named Holly.

It would seem that Holly is your kind of adventurous act first, ask questions later kind of pup.

Holly loves her ball, the beach, and chasing her ball at the beach. It just took her awhile to grasp the concept that water is not as easy to run on top of as sand.

It can certainly come as a rude shock when you're baring down on you favourite tennis ball and the ground disappears out from underneath you, and then the next thing you know, you're having a salt water bath!

Have included some wonderful photos of Holly when she was young taken by Brad's brother.

Inspired by the new car purchase!

Need coffeeee....

Just a really quick scribble this morning...Badly need coffeeeeeeeee.....

Puppy Poll : Tell me your favourite styles

Worked on some more puppy styles and decided I wanted to get your feedback on what your preferred style. I will then look at implementing that style into some future puppy sketches. I won't however be using the Pawphans or Me Mate styles I developed for Moose as I don't want to leverage off their products and want to distance my personal work from those brands as much as possible.

If I can get you to write in your top 5 preferences in order and i'll then tally the results. Hope you can help me out on this one.

Mucho appreciado! :)

Covorting with the enemy

I've often wondered why it is that some dogs will quite happily live in harmony with cats, others will take not interest in them, and then others will look at a cat like its the greatest remote control chew toy of all time.

I wonder if those dogs think of their doggie brethren as traitors when the see them covorting with the enemy.

Space walk - One small step in slow motion

Was thinking to myslef this morning how funny it is to see an owner chasing their dog that has got off the leash and is chasing something. Take that amusing situation and place it in the low gravity of the moon and we have our very frustrating astronaut calling out in the vacuum of space as he pursues (in low gravity bouncing slow mo) his moon rover. :)

Bark 0101001 (or Nerd Humour!)

Did this one in my lunch break today after scribbling down the idea on a scrap piece of paper on the way to work. Its pretty nerdy humour, but i guess thats me in a nutshell... :)

Roswell?...or Rex

I love drawing cute lil aliens and cute lil dogs. I guess thats why I like the Lilo and Stitch movie so much!:)

Here we have an accident thats occured when certain interstellar craft are mistaken for other flying objects.

"Sunny" Sunday Brunch

These weekends go too quickly! Especially the good ones.

Had a really nice brunch on Sunday morn at our cafe hang out down at Mountain Gate. I love it down there as there are usually a couple of puppies down there with their owners.

This weekend was no exception. We met the cutest lil 4 month old staffy/jack russell cross (trust me, its adorable). His name was Sunny - named so by his owners for his sunny disposition. He was a real crowd favourite.

And so as we sat there devouring our breakfast foccacias i managed to get in a bit of good sketch time...

Another day older - Chase that Ball

Well, its the day after and I must say I'm feeling pretty good. It was a great birthday and i'm feeling pretty good about things. So its back to reality and back to chasing the ball!

Birthday!!! - what do puppies dream of

Its that mixture of excitement and dread that makes up any birthday of mine these days today. The excitement of presents and nice dinners, mixed with the dread of being yet another year older.

I was unwrapping a present this morning with my dogs staring happily up at me. They didn't know what was going on but to them it seemed pretty exciting. I wondered if they knew when they got a year older, and if so what did they wish for as birthday presents.

And so hence this lil illustration that i startedas i was waiting for the car to warm up...lil dog, big present!