Bulldog Brewery: Main image

The client's dog is an American Bulldog, and the only full-face photo she had was this one:

 But the quality didn't really matter, because I only need the image for tracing.  And this is what it looked like after I used the pen tool to outline her:

 Then I filled her in with white:

I placed the filled layer on top of the original (which I made black and white) and turned the opacity of the filled layer down just slightly to use the original for shading purposes:

 But it wasn't enough shading, so I added extra with a textured brush, keeping the opacity light and building up so I didn't overdo it:

Colored the eyes and added some lights:

Filled in the collar and stroked the paths with a thin brush:

I'll come back to her later and add some detail, but for now she's finished enough to use for placement.  By the way, I'm up to 15 layers and a little over 2 hours (including the background).