Dog painting - general critiques?

[Mystic-Spiritus]

It's a memorial for a dog that's passed away. Still a WIP, but I want some feedback before I start to get into any details. I don't have anything in particular I wish to focus on, so any general critiques with aspects that can be improved are greatly appreciated.

[Velocity Kendall]

you moved the body round to the right but left the neck unaltered, so his head seems to sit right back on his spine unnaturally.

thus illustrating a major danger of ignoring your ref.

still its early doors in the image and a bit of lasoo photoshoppery and youll be back on track.

[fxEVo]

Yeah, I agreed with above, the neck is shifted to the right of picture so it's like the dog doing some rapping neck move.
About watchout for the teeth, it's white but it still need the form of cylinder.

[Mystic-Spiritus]

you moved the body round to the right but left the neck unaltered, so his head seems to sit right back on his spine unnaturally.

thus illustrating a major danger of ignoring your ref.

still its early doors in the image and a bit of lasoo photoshoppery and youll be back on track.

The original reference wasn't much in ways of composition, hence the body changing. I didn't realize how far back the head still was in comparison to the body

I lassoed the head a bit more to the left and lined in some areas to show here fur is taught from the position the dog is in, does it look any better?

[fxEVo]

Yeap, it's does look better, but can you explain why you change the design from the original reference?

[Velocity Kendall]

yeah looks a lot better.

[Mystic-Spiritus]

Yeap, it's does look better, but can you explain why you change the design from the original reference?

This is the reference I was given, and to me the dog looks too foreshortened and it focuses more on the dog in the landscape (the plants) than it does on the dog, which is what I want as it's a memorial portrait for a dog that recently died. The dog looks too hunched over in the photo and uninterested to me, I wanted it to have a more regal bearing and seem more lively.

[Mystic-Spiritus]

Thanks for the shop to illustrate what you meant!

[Frida Bergholtz]

The change of the body position seem resonable to me but i wonder about the dogs face. You wanted a more lively expression you say, but I would be concerned about capturing the dogs personality. The people who gave you the reference must have given you that particular picture because they liked how the dog looked in it. Without personal knowledge of the dog, that picture is all you got to make sure that it looks like that particular dog and not any similar looking dog of the same breed. I'm all for putting a little extra focus on the eyes and gloss them up a little but changing the shape of them may come back and bite you in the behind if your customers doesn't approve.

Don't be shy to ask for more reference photos next time to give you some more options.
Very nice looking colours by the way.

[Stoat]

Both the original and Velocity Kendall's version depart from the ref, and that's fine. Something in the original photo doesn't look quite right; the dog's head looks to be in an awkward relationship to his body. That's quite common in photo ref, because it captures a tiny fraction of a second in time...and, very often, it isn't the very best tiny fraction of a second. Like catching someone with their eyes half closed, the camera often catches a pose when it isn't optimum.

If something doesn't look right, it isn't right -- even if a photograph says it is. But, of course, when you make changes from your ref, you're kind of walking out on to the ice.

Just babbling here. The current version, with the lasso'd head position, looks good to me.

[Mystic-Spiritus]

I asked the woman for more pictures last night, she said she'll see what she can do. It's not her dog, but a friend's so hopefully she'll be able to get some.

I added more greys and purples to the face to try to match the original reference a little more closely, though I'm not sure how the resemblance is. She thinks it looks fine, I'm worried that it looks like a generic golden retriever.

I also feel like the body is still very off. I like the face and I would like to keep that, how would I position the body to align with the head?

[Frida Bergholtz]

Golden retriever? It doesn't look like a golden retriever at all. I thought that it was a Nova scotia duck tolling retriever. But I'm no expert. The grey is muddying up the colours, perhaps you should stick with the purple.

[Velocity Kendall]

yeah i thought that, it looked like a mut to me, but who knows.
heres one in similar one to your original ref. I guess i can see why theyd want you to change it,,

[Dumb Naked King]

Weird, that dog doesn't look like neither a toller nor golden retreiver, most likely it's some kind of mix breed. Though using a toller as reference would probably get you closer as far as body shape and hair texture goes, golden retreivers are stockier and have a more "woolly" fur while the dog in your reference looks more lean and silky, with a slightly longer neck and thinner chest.
Possibly just the nit-pickings of a veterinary student... maybe looking at toller pictures instead could help you figure out the position of the head.

[Mystic-Spiritus]

Received two more references from the woman, and the fur is definitely shorter and more toller-esque, as well as the color being much more saturated than it originally appeared.

[Mystic-Spiritus]

Weird, that dog doesn't look like neither a toller nor golden retreiver, most likely it's some kind of mix breed. Though using a toller as reference would probably get you closer as far as body shape and hair texture goes, golden retreivers are stockier and have a more "woolly" fur while the dog in your reference looks more lean and silky, with a slightly longer neck and thinner chest.
Possibly just the nit-pickings of a veterinary student... maybe looking at toller pictures instead could help you figure out the position of the head.

I was thinking possibly retriever x shepherd. The eye placement and the darker ear pigment seem very shepherd-ish to me, and would explain the shorter chest fur. The dog DOES highly resemble a toller in body which is what's throwing me off as it's body seems very petite and the fur highly similar, however at least around here the only time I see tollers are at pet expositions where they'll have dock diving ad retrieving shows.

[Velocity Kendall]

i still think theres something funky with the anatomy. id do some serious google image search and find a dog in the exact pose you want, cos i think its a bit wrong atm. i tried to chop it but if i were you ref is the way to go.