Gladiator Part 2

I'm continuing to make progress on the gladiator.  Quite a bit more work on the armor.  I've got a little more to do on the geaves, but that's about it.  I also started a bit on the white metals, doing some of the details on the cuirass.  However they still need a bit of work.  After all that metal, I needed a break before tackling the chainmail.  So I working on the cloth and skin.  I initially based his clothing in blue, but the color just didn't work for me.  I decided to switch to a pale purple instead, which is a complementary color to the yellow metal.  I could have gone brighter on the purple, but those dyes were extremely expensive in ancient time.  So pale seemed a bit more realistic to my mind.

Here's a look at how the figure has progressed.  You can see the stages for the cuirass.  I begin with a dark base (metallics work best over a dark case), in this case purple as it contrasts with the yellow metal.  Then I do a sketch with metallics to help me figure out placement of the lights and darks (middle image).  This involves about 5 shades (base, 2 shadows, 2 highlights).  It's quick, without much attention to blending.  I just want to see how it looks and then I can make corrections to shadow and highlight placement as needed.  At this stage the armor looks decent, but it looks even better after I go in to refine it (right image).  I sharpen up the shadows, going to pure black, and further extend the highlights (using Citrine Alchemy from Scale75).  I also mix a number of intermediate shades and blend everything together.  Stippling is used in parts to help with the blends while also adding some texture.  You can see from a comparison of the middle and right images that the final result looks sharper and a bit brighter too.

This set also gives you a nice look at the difference between the base coated cloth/skin and the finished version.