Self Portrait Study

One more study, this time of myself, a photo I took myself. It was cropped horribly so I edited it a bit in photoshop sloppily before starting:

So I began with a rough sketch. Did some measurements, but certain elements were still placed rather poorly:

Then I did the usual thin lineart I use for realism pictures... the lines are soft and I paint over them, but even if I don't, they're not distracting in the final image:

Flat colors kind of to just isolate the painting areas...

Some building of the forms with color. Realized the eyes were unaligned and too far appart, doh.

Attemped to fix it:

The shadows were a bit harsh so I softened many of the edges, and added some semblance of a background.

Final edits, a bit of texturing, and reduced the eyes, which seemed to me to be too large. Final picture:

WIPS of a 6 hour painting study

This is the reference photograph I wanted to paint, which was uploaded as stock on deviantart here.

To begin with, I sketched out the drawing: 

  Then I blocked in the background colors

Next I isolated the area of the face, and added some foreground foliage:

Then I started adding color to the hair and some of her face:

Focused on the eyes a bit:

And the lips:

Some work on her shirt:

And some finishing touches, including a slight contrast adjustment, and here's the final image :)