12 hours, looking better

May 10th, may start the eyes next, the mouth, work on the face.  I really would prefer to do the  face before the hand, and though the sleeve is still unfinished (and I'm not happy with it yet), it's important to remember that the sleeve is not the focal point.  It's less important.  As long as the details are present, it may be wise to soften them further. I want the audience's eyes to be kept busy, invite them to explore, hopefully find something new each time they go there.  I do NOT want my audience's eyes to remain there as if there's nothing else to see!

I really do love the folds at the elbow.  They look fun and playful to me.  I think they invite the viewer to follow the folds and cuffs and cape.  I'm personally very happy with the top button at the collar, ans Jesseca says the pectoral cross almost looks like watercolor.  This is going well.  So let's bring the real life to it, Francis himself.  Let's add his warmth and humanity to the image.

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This, um, looks a little creepy.  It's true.  You'll have your own style and methods, so there's no right way of doing this.  You might like to dive right instead of plotting out the image.  If you work from an initial tracing, you might have a method for getting a really accurate one.  Me, I always erase and replace the traced lines,  which are just for placement and size.  That's what I did here, most of my trace lines are now gone.  Most of what you see above was done by hand from the reference photo.  I did make markings on scrap paper to get the borders of the eyes.  This took, I'm gonna estimate, thirty minutes.  You can train yourself to do this, it's a learnable skill.  Forehead, cap, ears, these are still the original trace lines but this is enough to start from.   The eyes in the photo are slightly shaded, so no worries if these look a bit smudgy. 

11.5 hours now.   I never count prepwork like tracing before I start drawing, but I'm into the drawing now and this part is part of the work regardless whether I've started to fill in the shapes with tones.  Tracing isn't drawing.  Anything I do by eye, I count.

http://focusfeatures.com/pope-francis-a-man-of-his-word/?pid

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12 hours

See, that's only fifteen minutes and is looking a little better already.