Right then ...on to the fun bit ....Huurraahh !! I hear you say ;D
Painting the face ....
The face is first basecoated with an Acrylic flesh colour . Seeing as this chap hails from the Highlands of Scotland I want to create a pale weather beaten sort of look , a bit pale with maybe a bit of red in the cheeks from the cold ...well thats the plan :
So to start with I used Model colour Basic skintone ,but I mixed in a tiny amount of Prussian Blue to kill the pink .
After that dried its on to the oils ...........
Now this will look a bit scary to start with ,but it will come good ....I hope !
A couple of things to keep in mind . You dont need to put a lot of paint on ...a little goes a long way ,all you need is a thin film of oil over the basecoat ,and dont be in a hurry as the oils take a long time to dry so you have plenty of time to work ..up to a couple of days in some cases .
Also if you do make a mistake the paint can be cleaned of with some clean thinners and as the basecoat is acrylic it wont harm all the work you done on the eyes earlier or the basecoat .
Stage 1..... Shadows.
Using the shadow colour ,paint in all the shadow areas being very careful around the eyes ,you need to get that dark colour up underneath the eyebrow and in the corners where they meet the nose.
Stage 2.....Skintone.
Once the shadows are on ,paint in the rest of the areas with the skintone colour carefully painting right up to the edges of the shadows.
Sage 3....blending the shadows and skintone.
We now have to blend the two colours together to get rid of the harsh look and smooth everything together . This is done by 'stippling' Bsaically all you do is take a clean dry brush and where the dark and light colours touch use the point of the brush and dab at the paint 'stippling' this will result in the two colours merging together .You can carry some of the skintone onto the shadow if it looks too dark by using the same method just stipple into the shadow ,or vise versa if you want to pull the shadow out a bit more ,If you make a mistake you can always correct by adding more skin colour or shadow ,whichever is needed.
Once blened it should result in something like this........
Stage 4....First highlight.
The first highlight is bascally adding the lighter skintone (more white in the skin colour) This is added the same as the skin colour BUT in smaller areas .Apply this mostly to areas like the forehead ,nose ,tope of the eyebrows,top lip,tops of the cheeks and the chin ,not forgetting any areas on the neck and ears that need highlighting.
It doesnt show well in the pic because the colour is only slightly lighter than the skintone.
And again ....after blending...
Stage 5....Highlights
This is the final 'wet' highlights I shall be adding .I've chose to go with white on this face because as I said I want a pale finish.
The White is added to all the 'high points ' of the face ,again forehead ,nose,cheeks etc and blened in the same way .Remember ...always use a clean dry brush for blending !
Stage 6....Adding some colour.
This final stage of wet on wet is adding some colour to the face ,I added a tiny amount of Crimson to the cheeks and around the end of the nose.Be very careful and only put some tiny specks on as the colour is very strong !! Blend this in well to those areas ,you should just be able to see it and no more ,it will become more obvious when dry ,so dont be tempted to add more !
Next is the five oclock shadow or beard area .
Add some Paynes Grey around the top lip ,chin ,and up the sides of the face where a beard would grow.BUT,again only use tiny flecks and dont cover the whole area ,you just want to give a hint of colour !
So ...If all went well You should have a face something akin to this ....
I shall have to let this dry for a day or so before going any further ,I shall then add more highlights ,shadows and details . So for now to keep my palette usable ,I will put it in a sealed food container and leave it in the bottom of the fridge,this will keep the paint workable for a few days .
Back soon with more ;D
Thanks for looking ,questions and comments most welcome.
Chris.
