The next step was to do some quick pose studies on canine anatomy. I started drawing the more recognizable and common movements dogs tend to make. The classic stretching downward dog pose, the purest of all happiness leaping run, the “that hurts my feelings” look, and so on. I was starting to have a better understanding of canine movement, although the shoulder area is one of the most complex of all joints I’ve studied. I’ll worry about that later 😉 Looking forward, I wanted to test different mannerisms I may find Mugs in. He’s very characterized so I anticipate hitting certain poses is going to be a challenge with the rig. Once I felt I had a few I was happy with, I drew several sketches to develop Mugs’ model sheet, and this is the final: Maya time.
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. 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 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 […]