Hi all 
I would like to participate in the “Anatomy Lesson Series: Body Part 1 - The Head”, so I’m setting up my own anatomy thread, and will start now by submitting my first “head” wip, the Caravaggio’s “Medusa” (n. 031)…
and the last one (I’ll get rid of the snakes for a while. I hate them so I’ll go forward with the other heads and maybe I’ll come back later on it).
See you later with another head 
ago-stino,
Welcome aboard! Fantastic work on this, it’s great to see your fast progress! 
Very much looking forward to following your thread. 
Cheers,
~Rebeccak
Another one, 045: CRAYER, Head Study of a Young Moor.
This one was harder to me than Caravaggio’s…Thank you Rebeccak for this opportunity. It’s been a while since I wanted to participate in your painting sessions to learn and grow… /bow for the great job you are doing here.
Cya on the next 
ago-stino,
You’re progressing so quickly, that’s great to see! Once you have 5, please be sure to post to the main thread so everyone can see the results of your hard work!
Cheers,
~Rebeccak
n. 70 Gentileschi, David.
After this first phase (which is the most difficult to me), where I blocked out the shapes, usually I stop and start watching at the original for several minutes, comparing it with my sketch, and taking mental notes of all the issues. I try to understand the “flow” of the original, seeking the parts where the artist focused more. Then I retouch the general shapes and, after that, I zoom in and refine where my “mental notes” say I have to 
Ok. The last one. Can’t do more than this for now.
ago-stino,
Your third piece is starting to look gorgeous! Great to see your work.
Cheers,
~Rebeccak
Thank you Rebecca.
n.94 Giovanni Bellini, portrait of the doge Loredan.
This one is hard as hell imo. I hope that my co-citizen Bellini will help me a little from Heavens (but probably he’s got something better to do than wasting time with crappy noobs like me)
last:
ago-stino,
Lol, even Bellini had to start somewhere ~ and you’re off to a great start! Really nice use of tones, I think perhaps using a slightly harder brush in some areas might help a little. I’ve taken to using 100% opacity and flow, and a mix of soft and hard brushes. It’s a learning process for us all, I’m afraid.
Cheers,
~Rebeccak
n. 98, Botticelli, young woman
Another difficult one to me. Nuances are so subtle. It’s really hard to imitate him (like Bellini). Caravaggio, with his chiaroscuro, was easier imo. And this time I had to use a grid to get the shape right. I always try to draw without grids, but in this case if I messed up the contours, I wouldn’t have any chance to fix that while painting.
Yeah Rebecca, I see what you mean. I usually switch hardness, opacity and flow really a lot while I’m working (every 30 seconds?)…tjhe problem is that there is something I have to change on the way I put down colors…don’t know exactly what, btw I’ll remember your kind advice.
Here the wip. I’ll get rid of the hairs, please bear with me. This took way too much (more than 3 hours), I don’t have time and…if I work longer on an exercise I got bored (!)…have to move on the next…
last one:
I know…the neck is ugly…time’s up
cya on the next
So you use a lot of blending to create the intermediate colors?
Btw I checked out your website. Whoever Ray Ceasar is, he has one of the most impressive 3d styles I have ever seen. Kind of like a renaissance like painter combined with a toony style. And it seems like it may be 3d made. Its hard to tell. I think if he posted any of his works here they would be plugged and given a CGtalk choice award. Is your work there too?
Hi Nathan. Well, I’m not using any blend tool, only a a couple of simple brushes, and I change hardness, opacity and flow almost for every brush stroke. Still I have an hard time in doing these exercises…I hope things will run easier at the end…I’m still a noob lol
concerning my website, it’s a miniportal I made more than one year ago just for fun…the idea was that my website could be build as a little community for artists to exchange wips (and help me to learn directly at my web-home eh eh eh) …I left it a little behind (but it’s full of features, I added a lot of tools…)…and users have an integrated gallery like here in Cgtalk…actually it is good that there are not that many users since I really wouldn’t have time to moderate it…
Ray Caesar is a great artist…yeah he works with Maya…all his works are made in 3d and textures are really cool…sometimes he uses photoshopped photographs of his own human tissues and organs to achieve those cool kind of surfaces…I know that he show his pieces at exhibitions all around America, New York galleries and so on…he’s pretty famous in certain places…
ago-stino,
Really enjoying the lovely tonal work in your pieces and the sensitivity to the drawing. Definitely looking forward to more of your work, and I hope too that it all becomes easier (I think it does).
Cheers,
~Rebeccak
n. 46 David, Chateaubriand
This was an experiment. Today I didn’t have much time, but wanted to try something different from my previous “heads”:
ago-stino,
If you don’t get 50 heads done, it’s ok ~ slow down with these last two a bit and get the most out of each one that you can.
Cheers,
~Rebeccak
Ok Rebecca
But, in any case, I’m trying to keep the work below the 3 hours (the last one was less than one hour, but I wanted to try something different), and for 2 reasons: one, over 3 hours I’m getting bored :P, two, I have to give me a rule since I’m studying many other things…I’m trying to transform an hobby into something more professional…I don’t know what I’m going to get, but what I know is that I’m working hard…
the following was a little bit easier, it took me around 1 hour and half,
n. 96 Benoist, woman
last:
Agostinuk Chimaera,
Ah, I definitely see that you’re working hard, and you’re absolutely right, rendering is not the goal here.
In this last piece, the skintones are beautiful! Looking forward to seeing more.
Cheers,
~Rebeccak
