Tiger / Ferret / Elephant Mash-Up... a belated birthday gift.

So, at my day job, I work with this girl.  Usually around your birthday she'll come to you and ask you list off 3-5 animals that you like.  Later, she'll come back with a drawing of those animals all mixed up and mashed together.  The quality of her drawing is pretty equivalent to a pre-schooler's drawing, that any mother would put on the fridge.  It's kinda her thing.

Anyways, her birthday was rolling around and rather than give her a giftcard or something else equally lame and uninspired... I decided to ask her to list off 3-5 animals that she likes...  and informed her that I would draw something for her.... using my "professional" drawing skills.

The day job is a retail job, and her birthday was right before the big holiday rush, so the birthday present fell to the sidelines for a bit... but I decided to clear off the drawing table and tackle this assignment.  Her animals were a tiger, a ferret and an elephant.  Initially this presented a quandary because... how does one mix these 3 together?  The sheer size difference alone and the difference in body shapes would not make this easy.  So, I struggled with that a bit.  I knew I wanted the tiger to be the main body... but wasn't sure where to put in the ferret or elephant.  I finally landed on ferret supplying the face and tail, with the elephant being the ears and feet.  Then it all kinda came together.

I later regretted the tiger body cuz all the lines of the body were kinda a bitch...  But, as a whole, I liked the end result... and it was good to draw some animals instead of humanoid things (like I usually do).