The creation of Isaak & Snuff - another secret Xmas gift portrait

Isaak is a retired riding pony who has had much success amongst his wins are some at  Sydney Royal show. 
Snuff the cat is a much loved ' child" for Janina's daughter Kristy and her partner.

Earlier Janina had me create a gift  portrait of her sister's 2 dogs - Bear and Milly so she knows how much portraits are appreciated.

Knowing how loved Isaak and Snuff were Janina asked me to create a portrait  with both of them in together. I came up and took suitable photos.
I took hundreds of photos .
Originally Janina had the idea of having Snuff ( the cat) sitting on a post near Isaak.. It wasn't to be! It's bad enough trying to control one animal forget about 2 !

We did get some flattering pics of each of them but none that could be put together and get a nice feeling for a portrait.
 
Eventually Isaak was put in the stable so Janina only had to control Snuff. She held Snuff on her shoulder at the right height and I took heaps of photos.
 
We then picked the two photos would go together most convincingly  and I photo shopped them to come up with the concept.
 Luckily something had caught their attention so they were both looking the same way..I think I mirror reversed the photo to come up with the best concept. 
 It was then up to me to make it look like they had been caught sitting naturally together in the portrait! I think they came up well.. So cute!

 

Isaak and Snuff

 40 x 50cms image size framed Oil
55 x 61cms framed size.

'Isaak and Snuff were a hit, Kristy said that was definitely her favourite gift.
They are already hanging up and taking pride of place in her room .'
 Janina  

Here are some earlier photos as the portrait was created.

I've done a rough acrylic underpainting and I'm now coming back in with Oil paint starting on Isaaks eyes.I was just going to have a coloured background but as the painting progressed I felt it needed more so included the tin stable wall.

 Here Isaak's eyes are roughly done and I'm using the darks of the stable to put the focus on them both. I later changed his eyes to darker as they just didn't look right.

 Staring to paint the darker shades of Isaak. Then I do the middle tones and then the lightest highlights..

 Starting on the next lighter tones. Each portrait goes through an ugly stage before it comes out the other side. Generally the larger the portrait the longer this lasts!

Bit more done..

Here I'm starting to work out what I'm going to do with the background..I loved the yellow but it wasn't possible to leave it like that..I also wanted them to stand out more so I needed a dark colour behind them.
Starting on the background stable. 
I've also got most of the colours down and now I'm  just finetuning each animal to make them more accurate , believable and real.
This is the slow stage. Often I'll go around in circles for a while before working out exactly what they need.. 

 

It's funny I expected Snuff to be the hard one to paint but I captured him early on and basically left him alone. Isaak took more fiddling.

Below again - 
The finished portrait  . 
I should have got a photo of Janina with the portrait as it's a fairly large one so you really need to have a person next to it to appreciate that.
55 x 61cms Framed size

'I am the lucky recipient of this gift, what can say?  I absolutely love it , you captured them both perfectly.' 
Kristy Glover