Playing Catch Up (9.8.2016)

Due to a lot of things happening last night, it was impossible for me to post on here, as much as I wanted to. However, I still did manage to complete a face, so I had that going for me. Almost as a bonus for you guys, you get to see two faces today!

First and foremost, we have the face that I completed yesterday. This one is a little rough, and was done in colored pencils and graphite. 

This face in particular had unpromising beginnings, so in the end I'm happy with the way she turned out. Essentially, I began the very rough sketch in the dark in a moving car, so it was a little weird when it came to proportions. However, all things considered, I think she turned out very royal looking. 

Somewhere along the way, while I was coloring her, she began to remind me vaguely of Gwen from the television show Merlin - some of the influences started to work for me after that. I would still like to try this girl in particular again, perhaps digitally. We'll see what happens!

Now, we have today's face, which I am extremely happy with. 

I'm beginning to get to the point with painting faces where I'm getting more comfortable with it - it's almost soothing, actually. Sometimes things don't exactly turn out as I planned, but I'm trying to learn to be okay with that. For example, I know this girl's shoulder should be extended further out. However, for this concept to work, that would be impossible. And that's okay!

I took some influences from Tuesday's painted girl as the inspiration for this piece. Of course, there are many things that weren't even close to the same - for example, I didn't use any oil pastels at all in this painting, though the other face's skin tone was almost exclusively oil pastel.

• The main idea that I took from the other post was the dark black painted outlines around the entirety of the character. That was an extremely appealing aesthetic to me, and I felt the need to try to recreate it. Part of me feels like it's going to become a part of my style, though I'm not going to be attempting to nail anything down in stone. 
• In the left photo, you can see some of the finer details of this girl's eye. I'm particularly happy with this part of the painting, I think that the eyelashes turned out great and the color of the eye is extremely pretty. The finer details of the eye were done with a Sharpie pen (again, sometimes they're just great for the small things), but the majority of this face was done in acrylics and graphite pencil. 
• On the left, you can see some of the interesting textures I was able to achieve, especially in the neck area. I've never painted on cardboard before, and it was certainly a new experience (one that I enjoyed immensely and will have to experiment with in the future!).

 

•  In this first photo, you can see some of the better details of the cheek coloring, which I thought was nice. I was playing with some neon pink and trying to get it to blend - I think it did exactly what I wanted it to, luckily enough.
• In this final photo, there are several things that stand out to me. Quite obviously, the focus is on the hair, which is in a style very similar to my own (I think I might need to try thinking outside the box with my next hairstyle), but with highlights to match this girl's eyes. I like the texture that was achieved under the hairline, caused both in part by scratchy acrylic paint and by graphite pencil. The texture in her eye shadow is another added bonus.

In the long run, I've been having a lot of fun experimenting with these faces and playing around with new techniques and ideas - I hope all of you are enjoying following my journey as much as I am enjoying taking it. I love hearing from all of you in the comments, it honestly makes my day!

I hope you all have an amazing day, and I thank you all for visiting.