I have recently started working on this lovely bust from Nocturna Models.
From a zenithal priming I added some skin tones with an airbrush (that were later painted over):


I decided to go for a rusted NMM helmet and a warm-ish tone for the skin, so I chose green for the cloak to have something cold to balance the scheme.
I basecoated the skin, blocked the dar area of the eyes and also painted the eyeballs with a warm offwhite:


I stippled some lights on the face and painted the green iris:

I kept working on the face adding more lights and finished the eyes with the black pupil and the reflections:


To help frame the face I painted the hair with a warm brown. I'm still not sure if i'll wash it to darken and go for a brown hair or if I'll go towards a golden-brown/blonde look.



I sketched the lights for the NMM helmet and that's where I am right now. I still need to find a way to make these weird NMM lights work.



Looking at a better picture it looks like I need to crank the contrast on the skin by quite a bit.
Every time I'm painting I feel like I'm already too light, turns out I never am.




I'll need to do the NMM, finish the hair/beard, touch up the face to make it more interesting and finish the cloth. So basically nothing is finished yet hahahah

Looking good, very good.

It was my first bust what I paited. Very nice sculpt. Your WIP is perfect.

Thanks folks!
Today was a complicated day. I kept on trying to make the random light sketch work but the shapes were all clunky.




After a loooot of back and forth I decided to restart from scratch. I went with a different type of brushstrokes (lines instead of stippling) and made the shapes of the highlights more in line with the overall helmet shape.



After adding some color I ended up with a rough sketch of the helmet. Now it's all about refinement and color variations


There's a gif of the mini rotating
https://i.imgur.com/ECnKamF.gifv

At the end of the day I spent hours refining the paint job just to have to relating it... That happens...

I'm using Lukas heavy body artist paint titanium white, Vallejo model color black, the scale75 paints for the azure steel kit and some other paints here and there to tint and glaze (kimera green, Lukas heavy body Naples yellow, a vermilion/wine color that was in my palette)

Today I added a bit of color to the nose and to the highest highlights. Almost imperceptible, but it's there!

Today I messed around the face a tiny bit and worked the hair.
There's a video in here show how it's looking right now https://i.imgur.com/q0xyayK.gifv

Also, a few pics:


Next I'll refine the helmet and start on the fabric.

Today I messed around with the cloth and tried to smoothen some transitions on the helmet:


There are two short gifs in hehe with the bust rotating:
http://imgur.com/gallery/lngZZB7

Now it's all about the final refinements!
Cheers

I'm considering the bust done. I added a bit of color to the face and softened some transitions.
All in all, it was a fun experience that taught me a lot.



Cheers