Behind the scene: amazing dog portrait illustrations for a sports brand

Being from a tech background, the projects I usually manage are dry, boring and full of numbers. Working on digital art projects, however, is juicy, exciting and full of beautiful graphics — especially when the lead artist is Anas Riasat.

One such experience recently was with Sleefs, a sports apparel brand in the USA selling high-quality and super cool sleeves, headbands and socks. They asked our art team to make some happy-face dog illustrations for their collection, and the instructions were pretty brief and straightforward:

“Popular dog breeds, happy face dogs, front face view, partial neck showing, the tongue should not be hanging out too much, must look cool, not evil or mean or dumb, don't mirror image.”

— The brief, in full

The first thing we did was finalise the art style required for the portraits, so an accurate time and effort estimate could be provided. We then researched popular dog breeds based on online trends, dog shows and most-sold pets. The list also included a reference image for each dog based on our team's understanding of the requirements.

Anas has a very efficient digital painting process which makes it super easy for late revisions. The artwork files are structured in main layers in line with the painting process:

1. 01Concept sketches
2. 02Final sketch
3. 03Greyscale shading
4. 04Basic color shading
5. 05Final illustration

For most projects we would send a sketch for approval; however, in this case we had an accurate reference for poses and camera angle, so there was nothing to verify in the sketch phase. It made more sense to send the illustration for approval once the basic colour shading was complete. We worked in batches of five portraits at a time, so while the coloured versions were in revision, Anas and the team would start on the next batch.

Within three weeks, Daniel was super happy because he had more happy dog paintings for his store than he could wish for. Here are some of the final paintings:

“In my country we say, 'Vos sos el mejor.' You are the best.”

— Daniel G, Sleefs

I learnt so much about dogs during this project, which made me stop to think how much research concept artists must do in order to make such gorgeous paintings. Hats off to Anas Riasat and the supporting artists. Have a look at the final product: