It was 4 a.m. and I could hear rhythmically thumping 4/4 bass from the nightclub downstairs.  At the time, I lived right in the CBD (for you North Americans, that means City Business District) next to Cuba street, in the middle of everything.  Could it have been the club music keeping me up?  Perhaps.  It was more likely that coffee I had at 3:30 that afternoon that was just kicking in.

I got up, grabbed my sketchbook, and put pencil on paper.  Just a middle of the night doodle.

Doodlydoo

Doodlydee

After a couple pages of grotesque nonsensical middle-of-the-night depictions, I wanted to push out more ideas for the dog character in my story.  I poorly attempted some perspective type industrial design drawings of a dog and failed.  It’s 5am and my hands are doing that caffeine trembling thing, whaddya want?  These certainly did help me zero in on some shapes for the canine, and I providentially developed an idea I fancied for the boy.

Getting there

I think we have a winner!

I wasn’t sure if this were the direction I wanted to go, but at the end of the day I wanted my character to look like my old dog Droopy (named after ).  He was a stout pitbull with a big head and cowpatch markings.  He was a character himself and really is a large part of the inspiration for this character.  My story depicts some of the adventures he and I went on when I was younger.  Droopy was the 2nd dog I had,the 1st being Mugsy.  Both dogs were my best friends growing up, and we did tons of things together.  From climbing trees – yes both dogs climbed – to wrestling, playing war, ball and everything else a boy and his dog would do.  My character resembles Droopy, but I named him Mugs.