This is a collection of work in progress (WIP) snapshots of the making of the painting “Uphill Battle” which you can see in it’s finished state here.

Almost done now. I’m very happy with the hair - it still needs a bit of tweaking, but overall it looks ok.

Painting the beads was pretty straightforward. Next up is the hair.

The face is almost done now. Next up are the beads in her necklace.

The eyes really make the image “pop”, doesn’t it? The nose and lips are still way off so the likeness is not even close yet. Christina Ricci’s face is more “doll-like”. I’ve managed to make her look older and thinner.

I’ve modeled the main light and shadow. For a couple of years now my approach has been to avoid color alltogheter but lately I’ve been forcing myself to painting with color. I think I’m starting to get the hang of it now.

I’m painting another portrait and thought I’d share some snapshots of my progress. This time I’ve chosen the talented actress Christina Ricci. You can find my reference photo here.

Most of the initial critique I recieved on my “finished” image suggested that the colors looked flat. Unfortunately I don’t have time in the immediate future to work on this piece - however I whipped up a revised version to show how I might adjust the colors in the future.

(click the thumbnail below to view the full-size image)

I wrote in a comment that I would actually use vibrant colors now that I think about it - I must have forgotten that part…

EDIT 2007-05-28: Initially I interpreted the critique of “colors looking flat” as a problm with my choise of colors but I realized later that what people meant was that it was the grey-values which were flat. The problem was the contrast. Not the colors themselfs. (allthough the colors were a bit iffy too) The solution was not as straght forward as just “bumping up the contrast” however.

This was actually supposed to be final at this point, however based on the critique I recieved I decided to keep this painting in WIP-limbo.

(click the thumbnails below to view the close-up detail images)