I wanted to do a study of a renaissance painting for a while (I do admit to the crime of using a color palette that's about 200 years younger), and what better to use as study material than the work of the one and only Renaissance man?

When I was working on the concept, I had several ideas. A ferret would be too cliche. I wanted silky fur, to try out the pearl-like lighting, so a saluki came through my mind, but I remember there is a picture (I think Han did it) of a similar dog with this color scheme and setting, and I wanted to avoid sameyness. Sigmar suggested a dobberman, and that finally set me on the right track with this. As a long-time advocate of so called bloodthirsty fighter breeds, I went for a bully (I did try to capture what they looked like 100+ years ago, so banananose, sorry). With tits. Because I can.

I like to imagine master DaVinci had a sense of humor, so wherever he is, he's not too offended.