Sketchbook: Crufts

The annual dog-show Crufts was on TV last night. I don't have a pet nor have I ever had a dog, but I love this show. I'm amazed at the variety of breeds you see and how a single species is represented through such an array of sizes, shapes, and colour. It's a great resource for character designers; a prime example of the endless variations in shape combinations when creating an appealing, visually pleasing design based around a single theme.

Watching the people obsessed with their pets and this event is entertaining on a whole other level. Anyway, other than Ramsay's Kitchen Knightmares this is the only "reality" tv show I have time for, mainly because it's such a good excuse to sketch:





The dogs don't stand still for very long, so all these sketches were done in less than 20 seconds each, if that. I used charcoal pencil on textured cartridge paper.


I'm not trying to produce clean designs here. I'm just doing really quick studies of the dogs that appear on screen for however many seconds, trying to observe and capture a pose, gesture or action before it cuts to the next dog.




And in the process of doing that, I inadvertently learn a little more about shape and construction in character design.