Mike Stevens

"The Passengers" Pencil pouch 🚅🐯🐸✏️🐻🎫

I lost my soul dog.

Nothing and no one can prepare you for this moment: I was in denial for the first few days- I didn’t want to see his bed, now empty. Each of his toys held beautiful but excruciating memories of the oblivious, light-hearted joy that now feels so distant.

Bodhi was not just a fashion dog, or a pet to me. He was the fork in the road in my life that pivoted everything about who I was, where I was, who I met and the career I chose. He was my heart, my center, my everything. Looking around, there isn’t a single thing in this home he hasn’t had an impact on. He forged an irreplaceable bond with everyone around him. You see, that was his real superpower. He was a conduit, creating magic links of serendipity to bring the people around him together, to gift connections and form relationships and giving us meaning, and purpose.

He was the light that brightened every room, the absolute apple of my eye, ever since the very first time I laid eyes on him. We were two spirits fused, feeling each other’s joy and pain. He watched me grow up as I watched him grow old but nothing changed about the way we were. He would always find me. Even as he experienced cognitive decline, he would find me, his little body leaning and pressing against my leg. He was my place of comfort, my ultimate peace.

I toggle between crying and smiling thinking of him and it’s safe to say that I will never recover from this loss but if I could do it all again, I know I would in a heartbeat.

And yet, if I know my Bodhi, I know that he wouldn’t want me to mope. He would want me to remember him with that million-dollar shiny smile, in a three-piece suit, charming the hell out of everyone in sight. I know he would want me to dust off my knees, get up and celebrate his life rather than bawl over him. So here I am today, mustering up the courage that I don’t have to share the news.

The news of one Shiba Inu that caused millions of people to smile and one, very lucky woman to be his forever soulmate.

I’ve never been great at drawing super realistic art, and I think it’s because it never really held my interest. I just love stylized characters which is why I’ve been drawing them obsessively for over 20 years! Because of that, I’ve got a lot of ideas about how you can approach stylized anatomy - here’s a snippet of a longer video I made on this topic ✨