The Process

I repeated my workflow for this project, creating custom characters and a custom GPT to illustrate the story centering on Yuki the pug, with cameo appearances by his humans, Stephanie and David.

I had enormous difficulty with the human characters for this one. For the female character it was incredibly difficult to convince AI to render her as an adult woman in the Pixar style. Apparently all females are pre-teen princesses, who must be depicted as such without exception!In addition. despite very careful instructions and reference images, with each generation AI would dramatically vary her outfit and jewelry to the point that she was no longer recognizable from one scene to the next so in the end she only got to appear in one scene!

I completely failed at generating a recognizable male character. I needed an attractive 60 year old man with male pattern baldness in great physical shape.  AI thinks all men are either in their early 20s, muscle bound with full heads of hair, or very wrinkled, looking about 102, disheveled, short and stout with grey hair! I am really looking forward to improvements in AI's serious problem with systemic bias! For now, unfortunately the male character had to be virtually written out for the sake of my sanity!

Thankfully chapter 1 of this story is pretty much all about The Pug and his ineffable puggishness :) He made a great little character with almost rock solid consistency!  So my project was saved thanks to the writing and a few post generation Canva edits!

The Story

Yuki's story is set in the seaside town of Bournemouth known for it's seven mile stretch of golden sanded, award winning beach. Yuki spent his summers with his loving family, David, Stephanie and Dylan.  In his latter years he would spend the winter months in his home-away-from-home with his doggy friends and devoted caretaker, while his parents spent a few months in their home in South Africa.

Yuki lived a long and happy life, walking on the beach, hanging out with his devoted family and even serving as assistant therapist on more than one occasion in Stephanie's counseling practice! Much of his story is set in an office loosely based on Stephanie's counseling room.

Sadly, during Stephanie and David's most recent visit to South Africa, the now elderly Yuki took ill and despite the best efforts of his wonderful and highly experienced carer and the vet it was not possible to save him  David and Stephanie had to make the difficult but ultimately kindest decision to release him to a well deserved pain free doggy rest.

Grieving for a pet is never easy and this loss was all the more difficult because his mom and dad were not able to be with him at the end. The purpose of this project is to help his family celebrate his life and honor his memory.

More related to this story

I am pleased to introduce the initial offering of  Yuki-themed merchandise available on my RedBubble Store.  The designs are the perfect present for all pug lovers! These charming doggy characters are perfect for print on demand merchandise. Which pug lover wouldn't want one of these little faces on a T-Shirt, phone cover, mug, bath mat and more?!

If you have any requests for additional images or products related to Yuki or your own Pug, feel free to contact me.

There are many chapters still to write to Yuki's story and he only hopes his merch can keep up with the demand!

Coming soon: Coloring books, Illustrated books Ebooks and Audio Books. I plan to create my first adult coloring book for this story as well as an adult illustrated novella. Stay tuned for updates!