My last Christmas commission was a memorial pet portrait for a dog that had very recently crossed the rainbow bridge. I was pretty nervous about it because the client wanted the ear position changed from what the photo showed – to facing forward instead of to the side. There was no chance of getting another picture, so I just had to make do. And with the death so recent, the image in my client’s mind was very strong and emotional. I needed to get this right, even if the photo was not exactly what I needed it to be. I looked at an additional photo from her that showed the upright ear position, but was too blurry to use and the client preferred this angle anyway. I also checked a bunch of online corgi photos for additional references on ear shape and position and the width between them.
As you can see, I did change the neckline on the right side and the ears a bit. The eyes were a bit “buggy” and the nose slightly wonky at this stage, but those would be fixed once the colors went on. I was more concerned that “Trixie” didn’t quite look corgi enough at this stage. Tweaking would need to continue.