Bring the pain!

Yeah... I caved in and started working again. Fortunately, I had a rather large file of wood paneling that I made back when I painted the centre piece for the Piper/Cindar triptych, and with a bit of reshaping and distortion, it makes a decent start for the floor. I used it here too, but it ended up so dark (so as not to blend into his hair) that I can barely see it. And oy, do I hate how he looks in that painting...

Anyway. NSFW and all that:


I am not looking forward to trying to light drow skin with a fireplace. Those will be bookshelves on the wall. I'm trying to break away from my old method of painting (painting over the sketch meticulously) and get better at making an underpainting beneath the sketch, then paint and blend above it. I already do the latter when I'm working in black and white, and I've tried it in colour... the advantage is that it's much less fussy and time-consuming, uses far fewer layers, and never ends up looking like bits are pasted on. The disadvantage? Less control over colours. I can't just grab the layer that the chair or whatever is on and tweak the colour--I have to do that by hand if I'm past the underpainting stage.

My headset is starting to go. Pity, I really liked this one. The things have incredibly short lifespans around me, though; a combination of absentmindedness and clutter leads to a lot of cord-yanking on my part, so a headset that can last six months around me is positively venerable.