Genepi and Kaia low poly portrait

Since it features my two dogs, before reposting this digital art piece from @animal-shelter, I wanted to first officially introduce my furry family to Hive. But this introduction has been in the plan for months now, and it seems I am getting lazier and lazier, so who knows when it will eventually happen? So I figured I would post it anyways, it's too great of a piece to postpone any further. If you ever read any of my Actifit reports, you're probably no stranger to Genepi and Kaia anyways. However, in lieu of that missing formal introduction, I will start with just a few words about the two dogs portrayed there.

First one (right side of the picture) is Genepi. I got him from a local breeder almost ten years ago when he was just 8 weeks old and just about 20 pounds. In fact we just celebrated his tenth birthday less than two weeks ago. Although I can notice he's not as quick and agile as he used to, he often still thinks and acts like a puppy (just a hundred pounds puppy 😉) , and it's always great to see him play with Kaia, the second dog (left on the picture).
Kaia's 5 years old and Genepi's half sister, but she came to our house through a very different process. Her previous human went through a divorce, along with some of the complications it can bring. After moving to a different place where taking care of a large German Shepherd Dog was very complicated at best, the overall situation made keeping Kaia pretty much impossible. Of course, dropping Kaia at a shelter was not an option for her, so she started looking for people to rehome her and the breeder suggested my name as she knew I was interested in adding a second dog to the family. After a few months it finally happened, and about a year and a half ago, Kaia spent her first night in our house and never left. This was obviously a very difficult decision for the previous owner, but I like to think I did and still do a good job caring for Kaia.

Back to the original topic, a few weeks ago, @animal-shelter offered to create low poly portraits of pets based on photographs. I jumped on the opportunity and sent the picture below. Only after she mentioned it took extra work for her, I realized I sent a low res version of the picture (reduced to easily include it in one of my Actifit reports) and not the original picture. Really sorry about that, I kind of feel bad about it, even though she said it was a good test of her abilities in working with anything. You can find more details about the full process in her original post. One sure thing is that I really like the final result and I want to reiterate my thanks to @animal-shelter.

The original photo was taken during one of our obedience training sessions. I've been training Genepi since forever, but it's of course a lifelong process (I'll admit I can be much more lenient now that he's getting older). Even though Kaia knew some basics when I got her, she definitely needs more training. Even without distractions, staying calm for instance is already a big challenge for her. You can imagine when we meet deer or other wildlife in the woods.

Finally, a quick shout-out to the artist. You might already be familiar with her blog. I particularly like when she describes the daily life of all the animals she takes great care of. But she also features plenty of awesome digital art and photography work. You should definitely check her out.

Bonus pictures of the two crazy German Shepherd Dogs. Almost same place in the yard, but without the fall tree colors, and a lot more snow and sun!

PS: Once again, big thanks to @animal-shelter. As a small token of appreciation, whatever the payout reward is for this post, half of it will go to her.