Thursday was a very long day. Started off with drybrushing silver on the green side, to extend the lighter colors (translucency) of the jaw tendons.
Then airbrushing clear brown, moving it further away from the center.
Then clear yellow, to tint the center slightly.
Then refining the refraction areas.
Then I reattached the hanging strap, because at this point I realized that I HAVE to hang it near the crown to really understand if I'm getting the values and saturation correct. I used a little gasket sealant between the strap and backer board, hoping it will act as a vibration damper and keep the screws tighter longer.
Last thing before lunch was tinting the gums with Freak Flex clear black. It definitely helped unify the head, and gave me some idea of how to treat the gums later.
And I brush painted the inside of the gums black, so they merge with Bruce's original paint.
Then the hang test. And yes, I DID move the hanging peg down several inches from it's installation position. This reduced the risk of scratching the head's crown on the crown's crown.
It's one thing to match color and value, it's another altogether to match flat paint off a gloss reference. I could tell from this test where I needed to add more, and more importantly: Where I didn't.
You can see here just how much lighter the colors look when they are flat vs. gloss, especially at certain angles of reflection.
Now it was time to black shade the head. This was pretty extensive, and really helped its dimensionality.
Second hang test. Matching a lot more closely, if one imagines the darkest areas getting darker when clearcoated. There were a few areas of color still to tune.
Look how much lighter the black on the head is! Same black, same density, just not clearcoated.
Anyway...Time for more dark green shading. Needed more saturation in a few places.
Then more olive, for more tonal variety and also to reduce the intensity of the dome stripes.
Also a little more dark aqua on the blue side.
Back to the tendons...Airbrushing brown on the ridges of the creases on the blue side.
Then brush painting the refraction shadows, leading up from where the tendon turns opaque.
Drybrushing a little more silver.
Done for the day. Feel like I've made big improvements on the tendons since yesterday.
Nope, not done. A little more aqua for the stripes, to balance the olive.
And hanging again. Pretty happy with it overall.
But not totally happy. Something was bugging me. Something about the tendons. Took Friday off to get some space away from it, and did some Photoshopping to test ideas.