Tribe Chief Morrow - All Ready to Go!

I really enjoyed painting this piece and I hope it shows. My intention was to balance the realistic appearance of the Gorilla with the fantasy aspects of Raffa's brilliant sculpt. Hopefully that has been achieved.

17th Century Polish Hussar - Update 2

A few refinements on this wonderful bust to share. The face is near completion with further highlights, hair painted and the eyes further refined. I have to say that I'm not totally thrilled with the eyes. From some angles they look great, while from others they aren't quite right.

The pattern is outlined on his coat in a mixture of Mars Black and Cadmium Red. I wanted the pattern to be present but subtle. I plan to go back and work subtle shade shifts into this area to bring out the pattern more.

Tribe Chief Morrow - Update - Nearly finished

Except for the armor plate that goes on his right shoulder and some final "hot-spot" details, Tribe Chief Morrow is nearing completion. Frankly I had forgotten about the extra armor piece until last night and had nearly marked this one as complete. As always looking close-up at the photographs shows me the last few details that need attention. This piece was a joy to paint so thanks goes to Raffa for a bit of something different on my bench.

Second Project of the New Year!

This is the second of four projects currently in process on the bench, one of two busts by the very lovely and equally talented Anastasiya Podorozhna. I am in the process of blocking in my basic colors at this point with any shading (other than the face) being purely rudimentary mid-tones.  The face is about 75% complete.

My plans are for some highly detailed embroidery work on both the red jacket and the green cloak.

Finally, Back To The Bench!

I know it has been a long time since my last post. Honestly I went for a couple of months with no work done at all. Between dealing with the passing of my mother and learning how to use new photo software and a new laptop (I went from a PC to a Mac Pro-book), I have been slow. Hopefully this post makes up for that.

One of my current projects is "Tribe Chief Morrow" a great little resin bust from Forged Monkey and the talented hands of Raffa Picca. Yes folks I do like fantasy and Sci-Fi subjects and this one is great one.

After spending some time looking at photos of actual gorillas on the internet I noticed that what we assume to be basically black animals have a broad range of color variation that includes a lot of reddish brown. This is where I chose to start, by applying a base of Mars Brown and removing the excess to leave a warm base tone to build upon.

One dry a wash of Burnt Umber was applied to further develop shadow tones. My painting style has slowly changed to the point that I use lots of initial washes to build tonal value, contrast and identify good color choices (harmony).

Work on the armor plate started with applications of washes, first Prussian Blue..................

............followed by Purple and Burnt Umber. There will be a final wash of Mars Black applied prior to starting to build highlights and develop a realistic finish. You will notice that I started working on the leather portion of his helmet as well, with washes of Burnt Sienna and Burnt Umber.

Back to the Gorilla. An initial wash of Mars Black was applied and allowed to dry. Mars Black and Burnt Umber were mixed and applied as a wash to the leather and armor plate.

Mars Black was applied as a glaze, being worked into the shadow areas more heavily. My goal is a basically black gorilla that isn't really black. The warm tones are strong now but experience tells me that as I apply neutral highlights to the fur the brown will diminish and the black will become a stronger value.

The last areas that have been worked on to this point are the horns on the helmet and the eyes. The horns are a wet-on-wet gradation from off-white to Mars Brown to Mars Black. This is only a base for further work. Gorilla eyes are interesting. They are basically a strong Orange Brown with Black Iris and reddish whites barely visible. This one is fun!!

This is just one of about four different projects I am currently working on so stay tuned.

El Greco Laconian Hoplite - Completed

 

Well, he is done. After more tweaking of the helmet details, crest, beard, cloth and chest hair he is complete. I may well tweak some more before the Long Island Show comes along in a few weeks but for the most part I am happy with the outcome. I have to say that the pics don't translate my reds quite the way they look in real life and I am probably going to shoot him in front of a few other different backdrops as an experiment tomorrow.

El Greco Laconian Hoplite - Helmet and Cloth

 

Progress on the helmet, crest, cloth and hair can be seen in the pictures above and below. I have put together a small step by step series of photos (see below) showing the process over the past few days to get to this point. As for the hair on his head and chest, I basically filled out his beard and hair with a coat of Mars Brown and Burnt Umber. The chest hair was created by repeatedly touching the effected area with a worn W&N "Series 7" 000 brush with thinned Burnt Umber in the hairs.

 

The first step was to block in the color panels using Mars Yellow, Raw Umber and Mars Black.

These areas of solid color were then stippled and blended with an old soft brush to develop transitions in the tonal values.

 

Orange reflected color was worked into the wet paint as a "reflected" color tone on the helmet (both sides front and right side back).Additionally, a base wash of Cadmium Red Deep, Mars Black and Orange was applied to the crest.

 

Mars Yellow and Titanium White were used to begin highlighting and unifying the finish.

 

Titanium White with a touch of Mars Yellow begins the process of reflective highlighting. The helmet still looks to soft but additional highlighting once the helmet is dry will begin to pull it all together. Cadmium Red Light is used to begin to get the red dyed crest to begin going towards a dyed and faded crest from the period.

 

The tunic cloth was highlighted with Cadmium Red Deep mixed with Titanium White. At this point the chest hair had not been started.