We had been thinking for a while about getting professional photos of/with Buster since he generally comes out as a black blob with point and shoot cameras, but the interwebs had something greater in mind. Mayka Mei and I went to elementary through high school together, and she’s been an active blogger pretty much since blogs were invented. Even though I’ve rarely seen Mayka in person since high school, I’ve continued to read about her life from time to time (especially since Google Reader made it easy to track new content from friends). One day I clicked on a link to her boyfriend/partner, Bill Robinson‘s, blog and discovered that he was a great animator. Seriously, I don’t even like cartoons but he was good enough to make it worth watching his feed. A few months later, I came across this completely adorable commission of his friend’s dog, Bandit. It took every ounce of will power I had not to show it to Dan immediately because it occurred to me that getting Bill to do Buster would make an excellent surprise.
I contacted Bill and was delighted to find that he was willing to work with me. Not all artists are so approachable or personable. The process, though excruciatingly difficult to keep secret, was a lot of fun. I took a bunch of photos for Bill to work from, and he generated the following sketches as a starting point.
I collaborated with Dan’s mom and my sister in order to select sketch G to continue to develop. Below are the two photos that inspired the sketch I selected. I’m sure it was no easy task to capture Buster in action like Bill did.
Next was the color sketch phase. Bill changed the angle a bit for better composition. We also added some of Buster’s favorite toys. The shark is a childhood toy of Dan’s that his mom gave us along with a bunch of others over Christmas. The bear came with flowers that Dan sent me relatively early on in our relationship. He was initially unhappy when I suggested letting the new puppy have the bear but later agreed that it was a superior use for the bear compared to letting it sit in my closet. At the time when we gave Buster the bear, he was the same size as it. He would drag it around the house and sleep curled up next to it.
Finally, Bill sent the final draft, I made a few small modifications, and then we were ready for the big reveal to Dan and Buster. We can’t wait to get the print framed and hung over our fireplace!
Filed under: Art & Design Tagged: | Bill Robinson, Buster
That’s awesome! Would he be willing to do another? What was the cost??
when I get my puppy for Christmas, I want Bill to do a portrait!
That was MY sharkie.
Hi Anamarie, Bill was very willing to work with me so would probably welcome additional commissions. You can contact him at billiamrobinson@gmail.com with a description of what you’d like. I don’t want to say exactly how much I paid in case Bill realized he should be asking for more (as it was a lot of work), but I would definitely say it was worth the money and reasonably affordable compared to what it would have cost for a decent photo session. If you do get a portrait of your dog, please be sure to share it with me!
I had almost successfully talked Bill into doing a portrait of Buster in his cone of shame. Alas Bill, good man that he is, did not want to hurt Buster’s feelings with the sad memory.
[...] days.) Laura had worked on the construction of the Museum. (Another dalliance: Laura is Buster’s mom.) So after I got home, passed out, watched Fantasia, and regained general consciousness, I dug [...]