Remember I was talking about doing a comic strip? I finally nailed down the look of the main character.
Meet Cooper.
This, of course, is just a sketch (using a 6B pencil). Mostly it's going to be ink outlines with no shading, but this was an attempt to give him a little dimension to make sure it would work.
Cooper is loosely a mix of an English sheepdog and a Greek sheepdog (Hellenikos Poimenikos). I wanted more muzzle than the English had but wanted to keep the fur to cover the eyes (I had to work hard to not make a copy of Sam, from Looney Toons).
I'm drawing heavily off of the style of Preston Blair since it seems to be closest to my natural style of doodling. I'm really working hard on giving my characters depth and dimension even though they'll be simple ink lines.
I don't expect this to be a regularly produced strip. Kind of a "You'll get another one when I'm damned ready" thing.
But don't worry - I'm not leaving what I do here behind. Oh no. Cooper's a sheepdog, and he guards his flock using the best tools at his disposal. So I think you can guess what will be a recurring theme, can't you?