Based on our family dog, Spencer, I wanted to capture a traditional tattoo style. I used vibrant colours, simple shapes, and defined outlines to accomplish this, creating more of an animated look.
The design is supposed to make the dog look bright, colourful, happy, and genuinely golden, emanating all the best things I remember about him. The colour palette is like a sunset with a darkening sky behind it, creating a beautiful contrast between the oranges and blues. The flowers are a traditional touch that adds nature and extra pops of colour to the overall design.
I used a vector style to create a clean and crisp look. The vector art style makes areas of the image much more distinct with stark highlights.
Sketches
In the early stages of the design, I created a few different sketch ideas. These were the top three.
They were mainly meant to show different perspectives, or aspects, of our dog's personality. For example, there is one with a bone in his mouth, inspired by how much he loved carrying around a toy at all times.
I ended up choosing the top left design; however, the design on the right was a close second showing an alternative look where he is facing forward, which shows him with a big smile, and additional flowers adorning his neck.
