Thank you, guys!
Let's start the flesh.
The tones are very similar to those I used on the HistoricArt landsknecht:
Base: Orange Brown + Khaki
Shadows mix: Blood Red (Citadel) + English Uniform
1st shadow: Base + Shadows mix
2nd shadow: 1st shadow + Shadows mix
3rd shadow: Shadows mix (pure)
4th shadow: Shadows mix + Oxford blue
1st highlight: Base + Basic skintone
2nd highlight: 1st highlight + Basic skintone
3rd highlight: Basic skintone (pure)
4rd highlight: Basic skintone + Ivory
5th highlight: Ivory (pure)
Here is a pic of the palette that may be helpful to clarify the mixes (sorry, the colours names are in spanish but I think that is easy to identify them
):
My idea is to achieve a partially cold and grayish skintone. Thats why I use khaki in the base and basic skintone (very pale) in the highlights. There are still more colours to add for the final result, like a deeper and darker shadow, some red in the cheeks, some blue for the 5 o'clock beard, some purple and maybe other differente skin tones. Any colour that adds richness to a face of this size is more than welcome!
Here is the face with the base colour applied:
Now, this is my sistem when I paint such a big face; First, I do a "sketch" with the base plus 2 or 3 highlights and 2 or 3 shadows so I can set where is gonna be each tone and the extensión of each zone. Also, this method shows you very quickly if the colours chosen are going to work or not
. You don't have to be too much careful in this stage, just put everything more or less in it's place.
After that, I start to work with the whole palette in just a portion of the face. Now I blend carefully the colours, make any needed adjustment in the intensity of the shadows or highligts and start to add secondary tones.
When you have worked out all zones in the face, it's time to have a deep look at it and correct any imperfections, equilibrate the highlights of each side and add the final tones to the special areas (like the lips, the eyebrows, etc...)
First shadow added:
First shadow and first highlight:
We add the second shadow:
And the second highlight:
In this point, as you can noticed, I have settled more or less the shadows and highlights areas. Is better to stop in the intermediate tones because, if you have to make any radical change it will be easier.
Now comes the funny (and longest) part of the flesh work. I have already started with the area surrounding the left eye:
It still has much work to be done. Keep in mind that everything you do is provisional until you have worked all parts of the face at more or less the same level. This method may seem a bit long but, believe me, it gives you a high degree of control of the final result
Regards
FeR
