Making of "Puppy Power"

This pup made her debut all the way back in Jun 2018! Turns out babies aren't made how you were told, they come about when a writer needs 2 moms to be at a baby group together to horrify the internet with hyena facts! :)

Poor little pup has been in a couple of strips since then, but always as more of a prop.  For her first proper comic, I wanted to make sure I established her main 2 characteristics: cuteness and biting.

J suggested someone wearing a K9 bite suit to deal with her would be a funny visual.  After kicking some ideas about (naps? play? feeding?) we came up with Dad Dog needing to wear it to help change her.  As he's the pitbull, I thought we could cap it off with him proud of his bitey little girl.

I write a script for each comic before paneling it out and the puzzle with this one was how to show Dad Dog putting on the bite suit specifically to deal with the poop situation.  Initially I had him leave to put it on, but that's 3 panels minimum for not very exciting content.  J came up him radioing in on the baby monitor which got the story rolling much quicker.  I leaned into the dramatic "WTF?!" aspect of him bursting in in the suit, like it's a police raid, so the plot keeps jumping between AWW and WTF?! 

The dogs are always more challenging to draw than the cats because they're a bit more sturdy so I can't just noodle-arm my way through it!  I included a step in the animation above that I often forget to screenshot, where I place the character sheet outlines over the rough pencils.  I fade out the outlines and then draw over the top of them, which helps me stay on model.

J thought a more vacant crazy look (as opposed to angry) for the CHOMP panel would be better so he drew me this:

I liked the direction, so I changed the puppy on the last 2 panels to match.  Initially I had her smiling back at him at the end, but realized the juxtaposition of him doe-eyed at her going full goblin mode was funnier.