Starting Thumbnail Visual Treatments

Chosen Animal: The Doberman

 This breed of dog has a lot of character with its strong stance, straight ears, short tail and smart look about it. It is also great to draw silhouettes of.

 Silhouettes: Completed with Sharpie

Some standing and sitting silhouettes. My favourite silhouette far right, bottom corner.

Action silhouettes, running (left), jumping at different angles (right)

Sketches:
I based most of these sketches on some of my silhouettes.
Features I'm interested in: Pointy ears, face and chest. I want to have the ears large, could be exaggerated. Bigger chest to look more powerful. Facial expression is important and I want the design to be able to show expression well.  

Fig 1.  3,2,1

Progression from right to left (I work backwards because I'm left handed). I started off with more soft and stylized features and progress to a more broad, powerful chest with bigger, thicker legs and a more realistic face.

Fig 2.

I tried to break away from a realistic style. The top three are quite stylized and different -they kind of remind me of deer... The bottom right corner sketch I experimented with shortening the body, having a thick andpowerful chest. I think this could work with more work done to it.

Fig 3. 

I decided to see how the shorter body could with the rest of it drawn and in front view. 


I really like my first three developments (Fig 1.) as they are stylized but also keep to the breed quite closely. However I think the top three (of Fig 2.) are interesting. They are probably a bit too different to work for this project. Next class I will get feedback from my tutor and see what she thinks.