Wild Hunter... FINISHED?!?!?!

IT'S FINISHED?!??!?!!!!!

Seriously this has been the longest I have ever spent on a model for painting time before, but it is also the first time I have really pushed myself to try to paint better. 

But this has been quite the journey for me.. starting back in Hamburg last month in the BAM class with Roman/Raffa. Where the fundamentals for this bust came into place. And really making some headway by painting and getting the face finished within those 3-4 days. Not to mention the base colors and scheme ready for other sections to be picked apart when I got back to Istanbul. 

Once home I began to work and sketch out the other sections as I was still very burned out from the workshop. I actually did not even touch the model for the first week or so after returning home I was so burnt out. Doing something like 45+ hrs of work on this over the 4 days was quite intense.. guess I am not as young as I used to be. Though when I did finally pick it up again, I stayed away from the dreaded beard! It consumed my energy during the workshop, and I wanted to get my mojo back up for this piece at home. So I started with things like the metals, then working my way over to the leather aspects, before getting attached to the beard and weapon itself!

I honestly am not sure how many hours I have invested into this project at this point but 100+ seems about right so far. I have had bursts of energy that have allowed me to plow through full sections of it, and then I have had times where work and travel have restricted my ability to even look at it, let alone paint it. 

More so with the recent absence from the web, this is based on the fact that I am in the midst of the big move to the UK! Which although is a super fun adventure yet to be had, the moving aspect has not been the smoothest journey. So it has consumed more of my time than I would have liked. 

Even getting these final pieces done on the project here were done in the midst of many moving boxes. With me digging through them to find my glue, or xacto knife, or a specific color needed to touch up the piece! Talk about painting to the last minute on a piece!

I was able to finally put it onto the lovely socket that Heiko from the WuDao was so nice to give me for this project. I think although I like the one that comes with the piece, this fits better for something that could be put on an office desk perhaps? Maybe? 

In the end though, regardless of hours, of the tears, the blood, and the sweat ( or swears ) that I have put into this piece, I am really happy with it in the end! I think it really came together, I learned a lot of new techniques for future projects, and I think it will be one of my best pieces for the foreseeable future. Well.. until I get another piece that was as inspiring as this one was.. and have the time and energy to dig deep into it once more!

One final shot in a more moody light added to the collection. I liked how this looked while setting up the piece for photos so decided to take a quick shot at this angle also. Thoughts on it? 

And until then.. enjoy it! I will probably not be in Blogger land much over the coming days/weeks due to the big move.. but when I do come back ( probably in the new year? ) I will do so with some larger projects! Stay tuned for that, and enjoy!