I don't want to make too big a deal about painting a Bear of colour because I wish the colour of people's skin didn't matter. However, I can't escape the feeling that it does. There doesn't seem to be enough diversity in the Bear Community. Heck, I could see it in my own art. If you look through all the paintings I've done, most have Caucasian skin tones. In my defense - when I first began this project I approached a lot more guys of all colours than agreed. But I'll take what I can get - I want to represent all the diversity I can. That said...

Corey here is one of the few who agreed and I'm so glad he did. He's so much more than just the colour of his skin, he's super adorable, I knew I wanted to include him in this project from the very start. He has a number of wonderful pictures to choose from as reference, and his face is really expressive. There will be more of Corey to see in this series.