"lingerie would have been cheaper."

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This is probably the final piece in this set for the foreseeable future, now that Asphodel, Saoirse, and Harlow all have pieces in this little mini-series. Stray was always a grumpy character, but he'll play along for the bit.

I think even after top surgery, he'd still be reluctant to show himself off much. He's changed quite a bit - he started off heavily inspired by the dogs in AlbaBG's White Numen tarot deck. all sleek and pointy, but he's filled out a lot since then. At some point I realised that a dog wasn't That Big or That Strong, and decided to make him a bear hybrid, and that fed into his #tragicbackstory nicely, so it stuck. The sighthound part was just because they are Pointy, but since he's rounded out a lot since then, generic Dog is enough I think.
Stray is kind of stuck between a couple different characterisations - angry, snappy, and cold giant who'll swing at anyone who looks at him the wrong way, quiet and withdrawn but comparatively calm and neutral, or someone who's warm and compassionate and goes out of their way to protect other people. Of course, the obvious path here is to have him progress through these stages! I think he reflects our own journey with anger management really well, and I like him a lot, even if his design is kind of plain.

We've been debating giving him some additional scars, or tattoos, but we always come back to him being plain white - probably from the white numen dogs that served as his inspiration. (Seriously, that deck is Stunning. If you're at all inclined towards tarot, I'd recommend the deck thoroughly.) We decided pretty early on that he'd be a post-op trans man, just because it made us happy. His top surgery scar(s) is actually based on what a top surgery consultation said our results might turn out like, though we haven't had the chance to find out (yet!)
His phallo scar is just a generic approximation - I know the placement is probably off but I'm more interested in it being Visible than Strictly Accurate here. I don't see phallo scars on characters, like, Ever? And I'm going to fix that one fat dog drawing at a time. Stray started off super muscular, but I like him better like this - another thing I think he'll progress through on some kind of timeline. Young, angry, and muscular -> soft fat and happy? Ideal. No, I am not taking criticism.

Stray's primary symbol is the sun, but he doesn't actually have a proper secondary motif - he has sunflowers, but "sun and sunflowers" is a bit of a cop out. It's something I keep meaning to work on, but I haven't figured it out yet. While working on this, I thought maybe mountains, snow, or glaciers would work nicely - a fun contrast to the sun motif, too, but we'll see!