^^As simple as that
Last time I did some studies of the Joseph Christian Leyendecker.
That's what I've learned. I mean, that's some of what I've learned.
And, as always, here's the process:
quick sketch
Background colours. Also rearranged his eyes' 'tho it wasn't a good idea.
Broad paint strokes of a basic skin colours. Everything is close to red. His forehead and chin are slightly more yellow. Chin is also less saturated, which gives that greenish look.
Some further refinement.
Leyendecker was designing his brush strokes on purpose with purpose. I'm just putting weird marks, roughly indicating where a skin stretches, makes wrinkles or the value changes. Like I don't know jack about how to managed that, but I don't think that's bad start...
Rimlights (everything is 100% better with rimlights :D, rimlights and sunbeams - that's what I've learned so far) and darkening background to make this young man pop out from the background a little bit more.
I decided that young man looks too young and my conception of "piece" changed over time, so I made his eyes smaller and a face longer.
My friend told me I have no enough bloodies on my blog, so I changed his hair colour.
Then I refined it a bit more, put an American flag behind our hero, and called it done.
The purpose of that was to check what I've learned from those studies. It's not an illustration.
Keep that in mind when you're looking at it.
That's it.
So long
