Count Melenth Part 1

I got this fantasy bust from a new company, Polaris Minor.  They've got several sculpts for sale and they all look quite nice, but this one in particular caught my eye.  It's an evil looking fantasy character, so there are tons of possibilities for the painting.  I decided to try something new with this figure and make this a bit of a learning project.  In addition to the fantasy stuff I have planned (unnatural skin, fun with colors, etc), I'm going to try to play around with lighting effects (OSL).  The main light source will be above the figure and slightly to his left.  The secondary light source will be below and to his right.  To help me in the planning, I took pictures of the figure under each of these lighting conditions.

This will provide a (hopefully) useful reference as I work on the painting.  Speaking of painting, I began that by just sketching on the colors.  Using the pictures as a guide, I placed the main shadows and highlights without worrying about blending.  This will help me get see how it should look in the end and whether or not the effects are working as I planned.  Sure, I've done OSL before on the hobbit piece... but I really don't feel like come close to mastering the technique.  I still find it very challenging, so getting a bit more practice is a good thing.  Everything is still rough and, as I begin to blend, I'm sure I'll continue to tweak the OSL.

In general I like where this is headed, though I feel like it's not entirely right.  Hopefully I'll figure out what's bugging me as I go!