At this point in the process my desire is just to get the whole surface of the painting covered by Sunday. I want to work on the faces while the instructors are around. In fact, a couple of them came by at this point and said, "hey man, you need to get painting on the faces!" To which I said, "I'm trying! I'm working back to front!"
I spent hours of intently focused work on the asteroids, because I was terrified of them looking like floating potatoes. So they are detailed and textured to frankly a bit of a dumb extent.I was worried at this point that the fact that everyone's wearing white or gray was a problem, but actually (as Donato pointed out) it really works in my favor and helps unify the piece. Which frankly can use all the help it can get being unified.
Boris Vallejo suggested a green wash over the two generals in the back to help get a little more depth out of the piece. Green? Really? But I figured he knew what he was talking about, so I put in the green wash. It was alarming at first, but it only took a minute or two to see that he'd been totally right.
And FINALLY I get to the main faces. What to do with that big floating head had been a problem in the back of my mind since square one. I painted him in yellow ochre ultramarine blue at first, thinking I needed to keep his colors simple, and a little unreal. But it was garish, so I quickly went back in to knock the colors into a simplified and slightly unreal palette, but one that could hang out in back rather than screaming into the front.
Working on the hero's face, I finally discovered the drawing error I'd made. I'm using a reference photo for him, but in the photo the dude (a buddy of mine who I photographed for the purpose) has a beard and is at a slightly different angle, just to make things more challenging. I painted in the far side eye, took a step back, then rubbed it out. Then I painted it again, took a step back, rubbed it out. Then I painted it again, took a step back, rubbed it out. Then I went to the liquor store.
I came back with three bottles of wine and set them out for all to share. I was a lamebrain and didn't get any cups, but people improvised and surmounted that challenge. I wasn't the first to bring something to share. Mr. Mark Scheff had been generously offering people pours from his bottle of whiskey starting the day before. But even though I wasn't pioneering the idea, I was glad to have done it.
I finally painted the far eye. It's STILL in the wrong place. Don't worry, I'll come back and fix it later.
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