Golden Fleece

This fuzzy fellow is a Schiuan takin, an Asiatic beast somewhere between a muskox and a mountain goat. They're yellow. The legendary "golden fleece" may be from one. They have 'em at the Minnesota zoo, which is where I took all the photos for this guy. It's acrylic, 18 x 24, and was intended as a follow up to the camel painting, but I find I'm less pleased with it--part of it, of course, lies with my rendering skills, but I think part of it is with the subject--camels have almost sculptural fur, what with the dreads and matts and all, as opposed to the smoother fleece of the takin. And further, the choice of a headshot kind of worked against me--while I can paint a camel's head and everyone KNOWS what the rest of the camel looks like, I think the sheer obscurity of the takin means that there isn't the same sense of an animal behind the portrait, and while I know that there's a shaggy, thick-legged, grey-dagged body with a bear-like tail stub, there's no way to infer that if you're not familiar with takin kind. But oh, well--live and learn, eh?