I am starting a new WIP string to document painting von Tresckow. For anyone interested in the history, you can check out the previous sculpting string and this YouTube video, part of a pretty good TV series on Hitler's Bodyguard, which doubles as a history of the various plots and conspiracies against Hitler. The relevant part starts at 31:40.



I will be painting him in acrylics and inks, as usual.

Colin

Undercoat, a bit of shading and starting his eyes. Shot with the iPad. Nice thing about shooting and posting pix is that you see errors early. After looking at this photo, I cut the top of the right eye with paint to balance it out with the left. The lip looks imbalanced but that is just clumsy shading that I will fix later.

Colin

A bit more prep of the base coat.

Colin

Nice! Very nice start, Colin!
Following closely!
Cheers,
Zeno

Better camera.

Colin

Very nice start Colin. Is this all acrylic or oils or both?
John

He's coming out nicely Colin !

Joe

Great start Colin!
Your style of painting fleshtones has become instantly recognizable. Rather than simply jumping on the current trends you have developed your own techniques and in turn have created a style that's become your's... this way, even when you do a popular commercial piece, it is always unique, with your own personal signature.

Looking forward to seeing this guy develope

Colin

Looking good

This morning's progress. Just acrylics so far. No inks added yet. Poor quality photos with the iPad.

Colin

John - I sometimes paint in oil but rarely blend oil and water based media on one piece. Tis one is acrylic and it will have water based inks too.

Cheers

Colin

Added some inks.

Colin

Looks better and better! What ink/water ratio did you used?
Cheers,
Zeno

Thanks Zeno...for washes over established large areas of flesh...about 5 parts water to one part ink. For wrinkles and creases....about 3 to 1.

Colin

Thanks Colin! Much appreciated!
Cheers,
Zeno

Hello Colin, You really have those inks down to a fine art, they really make a big difference in your facial color tones. The eyes also look fantastic. Enjoying watching this develop Colin, best of luck the rest of the way. Regards, SG

Hi Nap and thanks for the kind words. It's pretty hard to reconstruct my flesh mix as I use a lot of Vallejo colours, both model and game colour. Here's a shot of the flesh paints used, often mixed. Browns were also mixed in.



But I start with a base of brown rose and then mix it with sunny skintone to avoid too pink a shade. As I paint I compare the skin tone to my hand. I learned to paint flesh with the oil painter's mantra "avoid pumpkin head" echoing in my ears. If I get the flesh too pink, I wash it with diluted burnt sienna ink. I like flesh to include reds, purples, blues and greens and these are all added with heavily diluted inks (stained rather than painted). I did not paint in catch lights and may not. After I dull coat him I will do the metals, metallic ink and gloss on the eyes.

Oh yes, it's critical when painting German Resistance personalities to have a blue ray of "Valkyrie" playing in the room.

Colin

Face not finished yet but I have also started the uniform. Using Andrea's field grey set, which I quite like, but adding some light flesh to the highest highlight to get a wider range of transitions.




Colin

Wow,that is a superbly painted face,brilliant work