Not too far from where I used to work there is one of the nicest boulevards in the city. Walking there, I was often crossing paths with people in their morning routine: walking their dogs in sportswear and sleepers, drinking coffee from a paper cup purchased in the nearest cafe. My morning walk to get to the office inspired this character. This sketch flew right onto the paper in a matter of minutes; a distracted man, kind of naive too.
On the other hand the dog really took time to come to life. I struggled with the type of dog that would fit with his owner… Usually when I am unsure of what to draw exactly, I sometimes resort to the all-mighty google images to refine what I am looking for in the character and see if it would fit. Here I chose to use the inspiration from dog #3 but made sure to adapt it to the illustration’s overall design by using an H2 pencil.
See below the final illustration where the little dog sits gently at the end of his leash. I made him small and soft looking because I wanted him to fit just right with the way the owner looked like.
Here Boy
This is the final version after some work on Photoshop CS6. Thanks to the many brushes that you can find online, I can replicate the feel of pastels. I chose a very plain color palette, because I wanted to keep in with the simplicity of the character and made sure to avoid adding too many elements to respect the works’ minimalism. That is also the reason why the character is no longer a city dog-walker and more of a country-side boy with his doggy for company.