Starting on the Dog

Now comes the really fun part. Much as I enjoyed playing with the background, once I hit the animal I feel I am in my element.

Like usual, I began with the eyes. If I can nail them, the rest of the animal seems to flow. From there, I moved to the nose, mouth, then filled out the rest of the head and moved to the neck.

Hmm. This hair is going to be slow-going. To create a 3-D feeling to the hair (but not make it look stiff) will take strong dark edges, then blending. The section I have done so far has gone through several stages of adding sharp darker lines then softening the edges with my favorite blending brush.