Custom Pet Portraits: What Actually Makes a Good One

Search for a custom pet portrait and you will find a thousand of them, most showing the same thing: somebody's dog in a gold frame, wearing a uniform. They look identical in the thumbnail. They are not identical on the wall.

The difference almost never comes down to the artist. It comes down to four decisions, and three of them are yours.

It starts with your photograph, not with the painting

An artist can only draw what you send. Every detail in the finished portrait — the direction of the light, the exact colour of the coat, whether both eyes catch the light or one is lost in shadow — is already decided by the photograph before anyone picks up a stylus.

This is the part people underestimate. They spend twenty minutes choosing a frame colour and eight seconds choosing the photo, when the ratio should be the other way round. A sharp, close, eye-level photograph taken in daylight will produce a better portrait in a cheap poster than a dark, distant one will in the most expensive frame we sell.

If you take nothing else from this piece, take that. We have written the detail out separately in nine rules for photographing your pet, and it is worth the five minutes.

Six things that separate a good portrait from a flat one

1. The eyes are lit. An animal's face reads through its eyes, and eyes read through the catchlight — the small bright reflection that tells you where the light was. A photograph with no catchlight produces a portrait that looks slightly dead, and no amount of illustration fixes it.
2. The head fills the frame. Detail cannot be invented. If your pet occupies a tenth of the photo, the artist is working from a tenth of the information, and the portrait comes out generalised — a dog of that colour, rather than your dog.
3. The angle matches the pose you want. A photo taken from the side becomes a portrait from the side. This surprises people more than anything else on the list. If you want your pet facing out of the picture at you, send a photo facing the camera.
4. The colouring is true. Filters, warm indoor bulbs and phone auto-enhance all shift coat colour. We match what we are given, so a photograph that makes a grey cat look brown produces a brown cat.
5. The style suits the animal. A stern military uniform is very funny on a solemn labrador and slightly lost on a kitten. Comedy in these portraits comes from the gap between the costume and the face, so pick the costume that is furthest from your pet's actual character.
6. The size suits the wall. More on that below, because it is the decision people most often get wrong.

Size is a decision about the room, not about the pet

The instinct is to pick a size relative to how much you love the animal. It should be picked relative to where it is going to hang.

A portrait that shares a wall with other frames wants to be small — 8" x 10" or 12" x 16" — because it is one voice in a group. A portrait that is alone above a sofa, a bed or a fireplace wants to be large, 18" x 24" at least, because a small piece stranded in the middle of a big wall reads as a mistake rather than as a choice.

The rule of thumb decorators use: art above furniture should be roughly two thirds the width of the furniture beneath it. A three-seat sofa is about 84" wide, which wants something in the region of 24" across. That is bigger than most people guess.

We have a fuller version of this in how to hang pet wall art so the room works, including the one measurement people get wrong every time.

Poster, canvas, or framed

All three carry the same illustration. What differs is what happens at the edge and how the surface holds light.

Poster is flat, matte and the cheapest way to get the art on the wall. It suits a gallery wall where you already own frames, and it suits anyone who moves house often. It is paper, and it wants a frame eventually.

Canvas is stretched over a wooden frame and hangs as it arrives. The weave takes the sheen off, so it reads as a painting rather than as a print — which matters for the renaissance styles, where the whole joke depends on it looking like an oil painting somebody's ancestor commissioned.

Framed is the same art finished in white, black or walnut. It costs the most and it is the only option that arrives finished, which is worth something if it is a gift and you would rather the recipient did not have to go shopping for a frame before they can see it.

There is no wrong answer. There is only a wrong answer for a particular wall.

What the process should look like

A custom portrait is not a print you buy off a shelf, and the ordering process should reflect that. Ours works like this, and any studio worth ordering from should offer something comparable.

You choose a size and a format, upload your photograph, and an artist illustrates your pet by hand. The finished artwork is emailed to you to approve within two to three business days. Nothing is printed until you say yes — and if the eyes are not right, or the coat is the wrong shade, or you would rather the name sat lower, you reply and say so. We would far rather redraw it at that point than have you open a parcel you do not love.

Once you approve it, it prints and ships within one to two business days.

Two things are worth knowing before you order. Collars, leads, bows and bandanas are not illustrated — your pet is drawn wearing whatever the style calls for, so there is no need to take the collar off before you take the photo. And if your photograph will not make a good portrait, we email you before an artist starts rather than after.

So what actually makes a good one?

A photograph with light in the eyes, a size chosen for the wall rather than for the pet, a style that is funny because it does not suit the animal, and a studio that shows you the artwork before it prints anything.

None of that is expensive. Most of it is free and takes ten minutes of thought before you order. If you want to see the range of styles first, the royal portrait collection is where most people start, and the history behind that look is stranger than you would expect.