Female Ranger bust.. WIP

So over the weekend I begun work on a female bust of what can only be explained to be a ranger. She is kinda part of my dwarf project, but not fully. More on that comment much later.. maybe :)

But with this as a start, and me very happy with this drawing/painting of the bust, off I went! With the same colors but on a black base ( kinda a mistake I guess ) I take off on this piece!

Honestly this was not a bad start for me on the bust. It was not the best, but not terrible.. though somewhere after this the shading, and washes of the cloak got really muddy. And then dirty. And then it all went pear shaped and I threw a bit of an artistic hissy fit on it, and left it alone for the rest of the evening. Going back at it the next day.

I think it could have survived this original color with some more controlled painting, but the mojo fell out of me somehow on this, and I just couldn't keep my mind straight on it. But the blocking out of the other colors were working well enough at least at this point for me.

Though the skin color came out really patchy and chalky.. though I might be able to use that to my advantage later on.

Going with a darker brown leather cloak so far, and a slightly warmer shoulder pad also. I also tried to make the border of the cloak a bit lighter, but am not happy with it either. So I might tint it yellow back to the original idea with it. The cloak itself needs more variations, so I need to go back over my notes on how to paint leather, and get more photos for inspiration on it. But less is more is not the strategy to go with this piece..

When looking at it under the heavy lights, you can see variations a bit better, but under regular lights or daylight, they all but disappear. So I have to go back at it and push the contrast even further. And by further I mean take it to the MAX! And maybe work some tonalities into it as well, something that Banshee attempted to bash into my skull in Augsburg, but seems it has not completely taken hold yet.

Though I am more happy with how the shoulder pad came out. But I would prefer to have a different look than that for the cloak. And the flat black on it will all be silver when I get to the metal working stage.

After a quick chat with my good buddy Denny Crane on Facebook, he urged me to just keep going on the cloak. And to drybrush a lighter color on it, and then maybe the yellow tone back into it. So I surprisingly dove back into it Monday night with a heavy drybrush, and some more colors in my wet palette.

Surprisingly it worked! Or at least gave me more confidence on the piece, and took it into the right direction. Still requires some glazes to bring it all together again, but it is moving on the right direction once more for me.

Now if I can only get the subtleties of the skin down and working properly for it.. then I would begin to really be happy. But I think that will require me to dive into the oils or paint retarders to get working properly.. time will tell though I guess! Oh and I need to stare.. I mean reference.. more female forms to understand how light and shadows work on open cleavage.. might take me several sessions to understand that.. :)