Another update =) I tried to push the highlights and shadows pretty hard. I may have went too far.
Thank you again Rebeccak!
And to answer your question…no reference. Perhaps that’s where I am going wrong. 
Here was my orginal sketch that was the basis of this painting.
hi! it looks great:D
But the nose looks kinda flat. The nostrils are a little to round, i think. If you look at this image, the nostrils are more “diagonal” (sorry for the BAD english). and the nose is a little pointy at the bottom…
(image from biocrawler.com)
And I actually think you shouldn’t have removed all the highlights! It made the face look less flat.
Keep up the good work:)
Hi Sheri!
I think you’re doing pretty good with the shadows & highlights, but the trick to making it all look good is putting them in the right spots, which imo, takes a lot of practice and study of anatomy and such.
Definetly work on the nose more as the poster above suggested, also, one thing that really stands out to me is that the entire nose is like one flat color going down. Try to make the bridge of the nose in shadow, the part that’s right near the eyes, it is indented into the head a bit.
Hi
I would suggest following :
when painting eyes, start with the basic shapes. remember an eyeball is a (nearly) spherically shaped object. don’t forget to shape out the eyelids (upper and lower)
there is a great tutorial on painting eyes on Linda Bergkvist’s website.
also, when drawing a horizontal line between both eyes, that line should have a 90° angle with the vertical axis of the face. Her right eye is positioned too high.
The mouth area usually extends in width to these 2 points where if you would draw a vertical line upward, you would reach the center of the eyes.
I’m also missing the cheekbones. Checking some photo’s of human skulls at different angles will surely help you with this
Looking good so far Sheri! really looking forward to see your progress
Not a sketch but still an anatomy study.
Trying to capture the Arabian form in sculpy. As you can see it’s still very rough and very much a WIP.
Comments are welcome. I hope I am not out of line for posting this in this thread.
Hey, it’s cool to see this! 
Check out this thread, there is some cool stuff there as well - I hope to see your updates!
Thanks Reb. =) Soon as I can get some coffee into me and join the ranks of the functioning human being world, I shall post an update.
And here we go…
As you can see I started to work on the head last night. I stopped to let it “set up” some as the sculpy was getting very soft and hard to work with and that is a problem when trying to work fine detail around an arabs nose. 
Later today I am going to tackle that neck one more time. After looking at it more I believe its a tad bit thicker than I intended. Good thing about clay is that you can always start over and refine!
That being said I am nervous about the legs. I think I may go to the craft store and by some sorta system to mount this guy up so I can work on his legs without having to “hold” him anymore. Its getting to the point where I need to do that.
Hey TwitchyHamster
nice sculpting. it’s something I definetely want to take up at some point in my life.
the body seems a bit small compared to the neck, but i know nothing about horses so forget this if I’m wrong
Really looking forward to see the end result of this!
Thanks! =) I built the stand last night and after I have some fun with (TBC) I’ll go back to it shortly and have another update.
About the neck…Arabians are known for their long necks and I’m sorta stretching the “desired” look for fantasy. His head is over the top “type-ie” as well. We’ll see how it goes though right now its very much in a wip phase.
Wow, that ararbian sculpture is looking great! How are you going to do the legs? I ask simply because you’ve stylised the face and neck to some degree it would be lovely to see a little of that applied to the legs, like maybe narrowing them to a point to really stress the style? The rump is wonderfully done, love all the muscles you can see there, can’t wait to see the whole thing finished!
Well it has been a rough weekend for me so little was accomplished. I am currently battleling the stomach virus/flu from hell so I feel like crap as I write this.
But back to the horse…I’ve roughed out the front legs and worked on the neck a little bit. =) I had a mishap with my wire frame (it was too thick) so I had to go back and rethink/do it on the legs so you will notice the wire is much thinner there now. I also went ahead and built a modeling stand. It is GREAT. I reccomend that anyone seriously consider doing this. I bought all the metal parts at Home Depot for 8 dollars and the wooden base at walmart 1 dollar. Not to bad right?
(please ignore my ugly stove in the background lol)
The horse is looking really nice. I always admired good sculptures. Will be fun to see how this turns out!
Jumping back to the gypsy girl…
Trying a new take on the nose as well as adding more detail to the painting itself. No where near close to be done yet obviously lol. Not sure if the hand is correct, deffinatly needs more rendering.
[img]http://www.twitchyhamster.com/WIP/GypWIP10.jpg[/img]
Side by side since the old version is on another page
Old Version
Hi…Sheri…
Nice job on that face so far…
…you might want to check the angle of the bottom of the chin…the bottom edge, should be at the same angle as the eyes, where the eye on the right is a tad lower than the one on the left…gives the hole head a slight tilt…same angle under the nose and wings of the nostrals…ect.
I like that horse sculpture that your working on…think it needs a little more meat on the top of the back…has a sway back at the moment.
You might try also to get the legs in a stance where there is movement, by having one leg raised off the ground, bent and set higher than the one that is touching the ground and carrying the wieght…just a thought though…
Looking forward to seeing the progress on both of those pieces…
TAKE CARE
Glenn
Hey thanks Glenn!
Did some of the changes that you suggested, as you were absolutely right. I should REALLY start laying out a basic grid before I lay down paint to insure that I have all the features lined up properly. I am deffinatly not ready yet to “eyeball” it.
I also changed some of the lighting a tad bit, not sure if I’m going in the right direction or not though. It’s all trial and error. =)
Oh and speaking of eyes, I am reworking them...in progress!
Hmm...does the composition look left side heavy? Or am I just staring at this too long?
[img]http://www.twitchyhamster.com/WIP/GypWIP13.jpg[/img]It feels a little crowded in general to me. Maybe a bit more blank canvas around the sides/top would open it up a bit more. The tone on the dragon doesn’t feel completely tied into the rest of it (for a reason I can’t nail down… it is blue after all ;)), and that with it’s strong abstract shape does kind of pull that way.
Nice sculpture, gesture of the figure comes through
Just set up my laptop so I would be able to do some paintings/sketches from work or what not during my free time.
Worked on this last night, w/o reference so I know it has problems lol. Just a fun piece.
