Dog character

Now I have the basic's down for the little boy it's time to work on the dog character. I haven't really drawn dogs before so I though it would be a good idea to use one of the techniques I mentioned in a previous post including Alison Relyea. I'm going to use her method of doing more detailed sketches of the subject first in order to get used to drawing it and then simplify my images down from there.

I first started by doing some quick sketches of my aunts border collie, Sammi, and decided quite quickly that this is the breed of dog I want in my story. I like how they have long noses like a wolf, this would play in well to my story when the little boy thinks a wolf is coming for him, but they are also quite cute, fluffy and not threatening when you look at them. This is also good for my children's book as I need the reveal to be a non threatening dog so it wouldn't scare children and help return the narrative to a state of equilibrium.

Starting off with quick sketches helped me familiarise myself with the way the dogs body works, realising the shapes and proportions that make the dog up will make it easier for me when I turn it into a simple picture book character.

As I started making my images simpler I felt as though my images didn't look right. I was trying to build a whole image up in one go when what has always worked for me best e.g. with the little boy character design has been to build my image up in stages. 

While creating my improved narrative I found influence in illustrator and children's book author Nadia Shireen. I brought myself a copy of her latest book "Good Little Wolf" over the easter break and fell in love with her characters. In the book itself she deals with a similar theme to what I want to focus on of things not always being what you expect. So I decided to look into how she created her characters to see if it could help me at all. 

After looking at her methods I decided to go back and work on my dog character again, this time starting with simple shapes.

Once I had decided on the basic shape for my dog's head I played around with different eyes and then like with the little boy I worked on adding colour and texture to my image digitally.