Your lab, down to the grey on the muzzle

How this coat prints

Labs come in three coats that behave completely differently as ink. Yellow labs have the widest tonal range and print anywhere. Chocolate labs sit in the middle and look best on cream or butter, where the shirt colour separates from the coat. Black labs are the hard case: on a black shirt a black dog can disappear entirely, so the artwork has to build the dog out of highlights instead of shadows, and the shirt colour matters more than the preset.

The photo to use

Labs have a shine to the coat that turns into a white blowout under direct sun — shade is better for every colour of lab, and essential for a black one. Catch the eyes: a lab's eye colour ranges from amber to near-black, it's a big part of the face, and a squint loses it. If your lab is black, photograph against something lighter than the dog so the outline is unmistakable.

Presets that suit this dog

Doughnut Ruff

A whole iced doughnut worn as a collar, with one bite already missing. Nobody who lives with a labrador needs to ask who took it.

The Dad Stare

Fine pen hatching is kind to an older lab: the grey coming in around the muzzle turns into paler strokes below the wire reading glasses, on a dog that has earned the right to look unimpressed.

One Ink

Single-ink printing suits a black lab better than any photoreal scene — highlights build the head, the shirt does the shadows.

Questions