Friday, April 21, 2006

Mugsy is complete!!

Finished complete Mugsy portrait, in miniature!

Detail of Mugsy's dealing paw, drink, and chihuahua's hands

Detail of the Poker table - - chips, drink and napkin, cards being studied

Border of playing cards and chips

Close up detail of Mugsy's mug!

Panned-out 'detail' of Mugsy!


Mugsy, the little Poker-dealing Boston Terrier, is done!!
Please feel free to see the entire larger portrait on my What's Cookin' page!!

Another high-concept portrait comes to a close. Actually this one is not completely finished yet - - I will be adding iridescent silver paint to the moon and stars which are visible out the windows, as well as to Mugsy's spiked collar!

Mugsy's mom had this wild idea to have Mugys playing cards. Who was I to say no? It was right up my alley, and, it is my very first 'poker dogs' or 'playing card dogs' portrait as well!

So, after thinking about how to construct the composition for it, I realized that if I did not add in playing cohorts, a lot of the personality of the concept of card-playing dogs would be lost. So , I added in some other doggies, but it is still a "Mugsy" portrait! The doggies playing poker are actually created 'composite dogs' from reference materials I have. So it is still all about Mugys, and the supporting cast are not as detailed and finely rendered as Mugsy - - the same level of detail was purposely not spent on them. Another way the Mugsy remains the star of the show. Also, I shadowed the corners to help give the spotlight to Mugsy.

One of my favorite detail on the piece is the playing card border. I just love the way it came out - I think it has kind of a 50's retro-ish feel to it. Maybe it's just me.

I took some photos of this portrait during the stages of painting (not scans, just pics with my digital camera). I'll see how they look once I download my cam, and if they are good enough, I will post them. It's cool to see all of the layers of paint - the background has three or four glazes on it. What is really cool is doing glaze after glaze and then finally, you do another glaze and the background just comes alive, and that's when you know that it's time to stop glazing after finishing that particular coat. :) You have success!

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