Sun Tze Finished

I ended up re-working the coloring on the gun, adding some bluish grey (P3 Greatcoat + GW Fortress + P3 Underbelly Blue) to the highlights and shading with VMC Flat Black mixed with VGC Smokey Ink. The shadows had Sanguine in them before, but that Smokey Ink gives it a little more bite, especially against the blue. I also added some more glazes of different colors to the pallet, but I'm not sure how apparent it is in these pics. The lamp seems to wash out some of the color variation that is noticeable IRL. I also added some rusty pigments to the parking meter.

 

Overall, I am super pleased with this piece. I really had a great time with it, and it definitely helped me scratch the itch I had to try some graffiti... but I would love to do another graffiti themed piece in the future. I wanted to carry the graffiti style throughout the whole piece, particularly through the juxtaposition of intensely saturated colors. I generally paint in (and feel most comfortable with) muted colors and earth tones and favor more monochromatic color schemes, so this was definitely something different for me. 

I also spent a lot of time on the face - maybe an episode and a half of TNG. Like I've said before, I really want to have a firm grasp of how skin tones work, and I've come up with some interesting ways to paint them. I also wanted him to have an expression, which I tried to emphasize with the brow, cheeks, and mouth. He's an authoritative man! The sculpting of the face on this model is excellent, and just kind of going with it was all I really had to do.

I'd been thinking about entering a model or two in the 5th Dimension contest, and decided that this should be one of my entries. Wish me luck! Really, what I'm most interested in is getting feedback from excellent and experienced painters, and I'm hoping they'll provide me with some.

I ended up titling this piece 'Graffito' - as if the whole piece is a graffito. I thought it was an intriguing title haha.