WIP of the week: dog studies

talking about my mischevious pets, and sharing some old sketches of my dog jake.

#WIPoftheweek #personal #pets · posted 03·13·2024

howdy! this is gonna be a quick one cause i have another thing i really wanna write about in a few days, but i'm not stopping the "WIP of the week" routine just yet.

i hope you guys had some good weather today like i did. i put off a few responsibilities just to go outside and enjoy the warm air and sunshine with my dog and cat. ichimatsu is an indoor cat, but i let him out in the front yard for a few minutes every day with supervision. i might partially regret letting him out in the first place, because every day he tries to stay out longer. 5 minutes turned to 10 minutes, then 15, then i'm letting him out two times a day, and now he's really pushing for three which is NOT happening.

today he was particularly cheeky; when i was leaving to give jake his afternoon walk, ichi snuck out from under me and started full-on sprinting to the backyard so he could roll around on the patio and get all dusty. i had to run to catch him and he meowed sadly the whole way back. he makes a good argument for strict cat-parenting... never let 'em out for any longer than they usually do or they're gonna end up whining all day like him.

enough about the cat though, today's WIP that i'm sharing features my dog instead!

these are two photo studies i did of jake around this time last year. honestly it doesn't really count as a work-in-progress, just something i did in my spare time that i didn't feel the need to post. studies are a pretty fun exercise for art block, and a good way to test your coloring skills. if i remember correctly, i took these two seperate photos on my phone, propped it up on my desk, and challenged myself to recreate the pictures on procreate without tracing or color-dropping. since the two pictures were taken with different lighting, you can really see the change in how his fur color looks. but at the same time, it still reads as the same dog, just in different environments. color theory is mental.

i drew these a while ago so this may not be totally accurate, but i remember doing these studies and really reminiscing on jake's mortality. he's pretty old now, almost 13 years old this year. he doesn't have all his teeth, and the fur around his face is turning white. he's also limping on occasion, which is probably due to arthritis which we have to check at the vet sooner or later. he used to run around willy-nilly without his leash just like ichi did today, but now he's more content with just sitting down in the sun.

there are a lot of signs that he's getting older, but at the same time he looks as young as ever when he gets excited. these are some pictures of him from around january this year, where he went out in the snow:

the pic of him running around cracks me up, the only time he gets hyper these days is when it's snowing outside! and yeah, that is a dinosaur outfit on him.

i'd rather not get too mushy right now, but even though jake's time is limited, he's still a happy funny dog. plus i have plenty of pictures and drawings to remember him by once he does cross the bridge. and for the record i have drawings of my cat too, but they happen to be school assignments rather than stuff i did out of the blue. not really sure what that means, but make of that what you will.

anyway, i think that's it for today! ichi is now up on m desk covering the scren as i typ ethis , so that probabaly beasns he needs some attecntion. about the thing i really wanted to write about, it's just a little introduction to the two "mascot" characters on my homepage, aka two blorbos from my favorite anime. so stay tuned for that.

signing off now, talk to you later!︎ ❤