In the dog house

So I, or rather my family, have these two dogs. There is Maru the totally awesome Corgi that I love to death and miss soooooooooooo much. Seriously, that dog is amazing. And then there is the beagle, Chobi. Now Chobi is..well.. special. He is sweet as pie and precious, but the poor guy is just not all there. I don't really know what is in his head actually.
If your not familiar with the corgi breed its suffice to say they are hyperactive and on par with jack russels. So naturally Maru is always geared up like the Tasmanian Devil ready to play. Meanwhile Chobi prefers to nuzzle up and chew his plush toy. Seems like a good balance of the force. Untiiiiiiil it's play time. When you throw the ball Maru will chase after it with lightening speed and catch it mid air like a shark (cute!). This however and for whatever reason really upsets Chobi, almost like road rage in a person. Chobi will let out his beagle howl the second Maru even flinches for the ball. But it doesn't stop. Chobi will not only howl, but he will get up from where he is, stand about a foot away from Maru and stiffen his legs like a fainting goat and howl. This results in a extremely amusing bouncing effect every time the beagle howls where he kind of bounces a few inches without moving his legs. It's pure cartoon, and pure madness.

Today I was thinking about this while I installed a program to work on my final background and sketched out this image.


I have to say I was surprised how Disney it came out considering I never do Disney style nor was I consciously going for that style. Then again subconsciously when you think Alice the first thought becomes the Disney version. I want to use these sketches to create a larger piece and include my fourth favorite dog ever, Ella May as the mouse, and another Corgi I've yet to meet, David's Kiki. I don't know when the time will come for that so I wanted to at least post these for now.

And for the cuteness factor, here are my boys Maru and Chobi In a rare calm moment:



Daaaaaaaaaaaaaw. I'm going to take a cue from these guys and go to bed. Its 3:30 AM! Yikes!

Moving right along..

Finished # 2. Unfortunately photographing/scanning gouache is very difficult. I had to color correct the exposure here, but you can still see a spot where the paint was shimmering in the light. I also color corrected the first background.








I have a long day at Target today and wont be home till about 12:30. Oi. Public transit eats up too much time. I have a lot of paperwork to do when I get home and some places to apply to, so I doubt I will get to working on my man made background tonight. Why are there not enough hours in the day??

I'm a little parched

Working on background #2. I'd say I'm 85% there. I should finish by tonight and either switch gears to some storyboard work, or do my man made background via Photoshop.



I dropped the panel as I was fumbling with the door knob. Doh! It dinged the corner :/ Oh well, at least I didn't spill a glass of water on it!

Are we there yet?!

So as of right now, im going to shelf this background as done. I know there is something more that needs to happen with it, but since I can't exactly pinpoint what it is right now I don't want to keep fiddling with it and end up ruining it. I'm going to move on to painting # 2 right now and probably re-visit this one after.




Might I add it is a fantaaaaaaaaaaaaastically beautiful day here in Los Angeles. Man alive.