I recently finished up another batch of pug portraits featuring Mochi, Macho, and Marshmallow, and then realized that I never posted the three portraits I did earlier this year of miss Payton.

Jenn and I got to meet Payton (and her parents) this past Christmas and we hope to meet Mochi, Macho, and Marshmallow (and their mom) at the 1000 Pugs photo shoot in NYC this fall.

Here’s the “M3” gang from New York:

Mochi (in her “Jack Sparrow” halloween costume)

Macho

Marshmallow (who is a very rare WHITE pug)

Here are the portraits I made of the incredible Payton, who crossed over the rainbow bridge in April of this year. We still miss her very much.

Last weekend, I got to meet the pugrent of one of our faithful pug slope commenters, Socrates – a fellow Brooklyn-ite. Or Brooklonian. Brooklynian? Whatever.

Anyway, the reason for the meet-up was two-fold: (1) so that I could deliver the portrait of her fine gentle-pug to her, and  (2) for an in-the-fur meeting of two great philisophical minds – Socrates & Siddhartha. Here’s the portrait of Socrates:

Unfortunately, we’ll never know what forms of deeper understanding or insight Socrates and Siddhartha may have come up with because Carlos got in the way. Or was it his cousin, Carl, Jr.? Since Sid’s muzzle wart entourage are contagious (only for other dogs that have never been exposed), Socrates had to stay home this time. But his mom still wanted to meet Sid (who doesn’t, right?!).

Not only was Socrates’ mom super nice and as pug-obsessed as we are, but she was kind enough to bring a toy and some yummy treats for Sid (and for us, too!). One of these gifts in particular made Sid weak in the knees – a piece of real honest-to-goodness DEER ANTLER! What’s particularly cool about this special treat is that the antlers are something that the deer shed naturally each year, so no animals were harmed in its making!

After so many attempts to obtain human snacks from high places, Sid has developed amazing dexterity with his paws. He pretty much uses his dew claw like a thumb (I think that’s how he was able to hack our computer and take over the blog last month!). Lucky for us, that day he was only using his amazing reaching ability to position the antler for the maximum chewability angle.

After an hour of chew-time, he was knackered. But of course he wouldn’t let the antler out of his sight.

“I keep all my prized possessions under my head. And then I cry a little.”

Thank you to Socrates’ mom for such fantastic treats! Sid said he wants to move out of our place and get a two-bedroom with Socrates up in the North Slope.

Well, in response to the Orange Escapade last Sunday, we ended up raising a few shelves on the bookcase that houses our fruits & veggies in order to place the edibles further out of Sid’s reach. If he can manage to get to them now, we’ll need to sign him up for the high-jumping agility circuit (if such a thing exists).

Anywho, I finished another Pug Portrait recently. Well, actually this one is a Brussels Griffon Portrait. It’s of Dr. Zira, one of the Urban Hounds. She crossed over the rainbow bridge a couple months ago but will always be remembered as an important member of the Urban Hounds pack.

Sid’s sleeping in this morning (meaning he woke me up at 6am by sneezing in my face, I fed him, and then he went back to bed) which allowed me the opportunity to stealthily get a post up on “Planet Cool Sid” without him noticing (FYI: Jenn and I are planning a “coup d’pug” this weekend in order to wrestle the blog back from his clutches). I just wanted to show you all one of the completed pug portraits.

This portrait is of a regular commenter on Pug Slope, Eddie from San Francisco (not to be confused with another local pug sloper, who also happens to be named Eddie). A couple months ago, Sid got to meet Eddie’s sister, Stella Boo McMuffin, who happens to live in a nearby neighborhood in Brooklyn.

If you’re interested in getting your own pug’s portrait done, please read this post for more information.

And to those of you that have already ordered, I plan to finish up a couple more of them this weekend. I’ll keep you posted via email when they’ll be shipped out. I’m sorry that they’ve ended up taking longer for me to do than I originally expected.

Have a great weekend everyone! Be sure to hug yo’ pug (even if they’ve usurped your blog and get to sleep in when you have to get ready for work).

I’m very excited about today’s announcement. Due to the positive response, I’m going to be taking orders for hand-painted portraits of your very own pugs! I’m very excited about this project and appreciate all your positive and encouraging comments.

If you didn’t see the previous post about the pug sketches, click here. Here’s another example of some pug portraits that I did based on some photos from a pug magazine.

Here are the details:

• Each portrait will be done in ink and watercolors.
• I’m aiming for the image to be about 3-inches square.
• The portrait will be unframed, but will come with an 8-in x 8-in matte to allow you to use whatever 8-in x 8-in frame you’d like. Of course you can cut down the matte to a smaller size if you’d like to use a smaller frame.
• Each portrait will be $20 (matte and postage included).

Here’s how to order:

1. Place your order by clicking the Buy Now button in the Pug Portraits area on the right-hand column of pugslope.com. This will take you to payal where you can use either your paypal account or a credit card if you don’t have a paypal account (you do not have to sign up for paypal).
2. Email pugportraits@pugslope.com a good photo of your pug which you’d like the portrait to be based on. Please make sure the photo is in good focus, isn’t blurry, and is in JPG format. If you also include a couple other reference photos, perhaps from other angles, it will allow me to capture your pug more accurately. Please include your name and your pug’s name in the body of the email.
3. I’ll email you when your pug portrait is complete and has been mailed.

Since this project will be done in my spare time, I’m not certain what the exact turnaround time will be. Three to four weeks would probably be the maximum time and, unless I get a bunch of orders at once, you can probably expect the turnaround time to be shorter.

If you are unhappy with your sketch, I will happily refund your payment or do a second portrait for you at no additional charge.

Most of the $20 will actually be covering the cost of the materials (paper, paints, ink, matte-board, etc.) and shipping. Any leftover money will be going to Sid, or rather Sid’s vet, as he seems to enjoy getting in to some sort of mischief that lands him at the vet at least once a month.

Thank you in advance for your order!

We still have to recap about our exciting weekend meetup with fellow Brooklyn pug Stella, but before we do so, I wanted to see if there would be any interest in a project I felt would be fun to undertake.

If you’ve seen the various posts about the “Sid the Pug” comic book I made last Spring (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), you know that I enjoy drawing in my free time. Of course, since I’m a bit obsessed with Sid, he tends to be one of my frequent subjects.

Here are a few sketches of Sid from December:

Lately, I’ve been experimenting with using watercolors on the ink drawings. I’ve got a small moleskine watercolor sketchbook, so the images themselves are very tiny. I had a pug magazine lying around (who doesn’t?!) and I sketched a few of the pugs that were featured in said magazine. Here’s the results:

So this leads me to my idea for a project: Mini Pug Portraits.

I like to work on a small scale, so I was thinking about doing little ink & watercolor portraits, like the examples above, that would be about 2 or 3 inches square. I’m going to try to see if I can find mini wooden frames for these portraits. If you’d be interested in possibly having your pug’s portrait done in this fashion, please let me know in the comments. If I get enough interest, I’ll put up a post about how to submit your pug’s photo, etc.

P.S. If you’d like to keep up with my various sketches / drawings, here’s a link to my tumblr page: verygoodsir.tumblr.com

I got an email from our friends in San Francisco letting us know that their little pug, Bea Arthur, and her spotted sister, Ladybird, have been avidly reading the mini comic (Actually, our friends had to hold a treat in the binding in order to focus their attention).

Well, I know the anticipation has probably been killing you all (yeah, right), but here’s the last two pages of the comic (in case you missed them, here’s part 1 and part 2). Enjoy!

[ Page 6 – An Offer You Can’t Refuse ]

[ The Back Cover – Sid’s Friends & Neighbors* ]

Hope you enjoyed them all. I plan on doing some more strips featuring Sid and some of his other friends. Luckily, he provides great comic moments every single day – now I just need to draw them!

* Of course Sid has many other wonderful friends and neighbors but unfortunately I had limited space so I’m sorry I wasn’t able to include everyone! Pug shout outs to those I wasn’t able to fit in: Ladybird; Sherman; George Michael & Maeby (the cats, not their namesakes from A.D.); Flower, Birdie, & Zooey; Lizzy; Minnie Moo & Lincoln; Bowie; Payton; and Klaus & Natty!