Portrait Marathon: Finale, stage two. Strider

I think I'm done.  I know!  I know!  I say that, and then the next day, I fiddle around some more, and THEN I'm done.  So, maybe I should just post this as an update.  The penultimate Spring Portrait Marathon post.

Well, let's back up, and I'll tell you more about how I got to maybe-I'm-done v.1.

In my last post, I hadn't really gotten very far along in the actual painting.

My next stage looked like this.  The white drawing was proving to be very durable (good), but hard to paint out (bad), but I was pretty sure I could work that out with enough time and paint.  Here, I've gotten a pretty good handle on my darks and lights, and laid in the basic color zones I'll be working up from.  I really enjoyed how his brindle stripes looked on the dark blue background.

At this stage, I've come a long way, with bazillions of little hair strokes, in layers, throughout.  The grass and sky background are just suggested, which I thought might stay like that.

I needed to up my contrast, and control the shadowy plane on top of his head a bit more, but this was definitely getting into the final round.

Which brings us to the present.  With a few bazillion more hair strokes, refining the details throughout, and a little bit of adjusting of the background colors, I'm pretty pleased with this result.  Handsome Strider, gazing off to our right, seems to be enjoying a lazy spring or summer day.  Makes me want to lie down in the grass with him, and just watch the clouds go by!

So, am I done?  Tomorrow will tell!

My next project beckons, too!  I'll tell you more about that in my next post.