Anatomy of a Kit

I thought it might be interesting to show my thought processes when creating a new needle felting kit.....
First I think about all the kits I SHOULD be making...People are always asking me if I make dog kits and frog kits, for example...so I decided to make a Golden Labrador puppy kit....

So this is how I began:

I went to Goggle Images and found this little guy....  I don't want to steal any images so I'll add that
greenfieldpuppies.com posted this   with the title:  Rocky, Yellow Lab pupple for sale from Leola,PA

I'm sure Rocky will find a good home very quickly!  He's adorable!!

Now...I did a preliminary drawing of Rocky:

He's been drawn in red because of my animation back ground....we drew in red and then went over it in lead....red didn't show on film...now of course it had to be a certain KIND of red....Carmine Red was in demand for years in the 90's!  Scarlet red just didn't cut it :)

I scanned him into my computer again and I cleaned him up with my photoshop eraser tool and darkened the lines

I found him to be too sad and dejected so I made a few changes:

I also wanted him to be looking at us.

I'm getting there!  I wanted him to be tucked snug in a blanket....

Then I added shadows to his face where, when needle felting this guy, you put a darket colour

 And here is the finished piece.  I used my drawing almost as a paint by number kit.  He's not looking at you like I intended, but I like him anyway!