Here is my final dog illustration. The gradient mesh was really difficult. It took me a long time to finally figure out that I needed each body part to be separate in order for the gradient mesh to work.
 
This illustration will be utilized as a die-cut sticker. The purpose of the dog is to bring awareness to shelter animals, and to adopt rather than buy from a breeder or store.

This illustration is a work in progress. Its purpose is to promote adopting shelter pets. I started by sketching, traced that with the pen tool in Illustrator, adjusted the width profile of the lines, and started using the gradient mesh tool. I will continue working with the gradient mesh, then adding transparent shadows. The final illustration will be for a die-cut sticker. 

It took me some time to get the hang of the gradient mesh tool. I kept adding more lines to the mesh without realizing it, but I eventually figured it out. It works a lot better if you're zoomed in really, really closely.

These are the sketches I started out with. I couldn't decide if I wanted to do something for shelter pet adoption or global warming. That's where that penguin came in.