When I received the ref photos I thought Oliver was a black lab - the main pose reference is quite a distant full body shot and he looks incredibly shiny and very black. The others show him swimming in water so his coat looks even darker. I was subsequently told he is in fact a chocolate lab x rotty and has a brown tinge to his coat.
As always, I've put some eye detail in first so Oliver becomes a 'personality' to me. I'm struggling a little with this one as it is very difficult to see detail around Oliver's jaw/neckline. I am working in a much looser style than usual as the photo is less detailed than I would like so am just putting down a base layer of pastel here.
I've started to define his nose and begun to map out some of the distinguishable shadows and highlights to help me build up the contours of his face. This is still a fairly light covering of pastel, just to form the base of my portrait.
I've decided to stop at this point as I'm not sure what is happening around Oliver's neckline. We have a busy weekend lined up so I probably won't get the chance to work on this again until Monday. Probably not a bad thing as I'm sure I'll pick up on more detail when I look at it with fresh eyes.
Hi Sue,
ReplyDeleteLooks great so far, and so does the blog.
Well Done,
Angela,
yep typical block Rottie head to him :) the only thing on the next that looks odd to me is the sharp angle on the right side, maybe make it a little rounder?
ReplyDeleteLooking good Sue keep blogging :-)
ReplyDelete