Zloi Thunderaxe- The Dwarven Barbarian (a work in oil)

My best friend plays in my weekly Dungeons and Dragons group. We've played each Monday evening, reliably, for the past 2 years. His character, a dwarven barbarian with an aversion to safety and a casual relationship with manners, has survived throughout the whole campaign, despite having a true wish to die in glorious battle. To document the adventures, I thought I'd paint character portraits of each character in the game. I started with Zloi (comical aside: in Russian, "Zloi" means anger)

I begun the piece on 140 gram Arches cold press Watercolor paper. I knew I'd be sealing it and painting using Oils, so the actual quality of the paper wasn't paramount. That being said, I used cold press paper over rag illustration board to try and incorporate a little bit of texture and roughness- I thought it may lend itself to the portrait nicely. In hindsight, I'm not sure it made too much of a difference, and honestly, the rag illustration board is cheaper, so I'll probably go that route next time. 

I begun with a pencil sketch, using a 2b pencil and a 2h pencil. The 2h allowed me to lock everything in, and then the 2b allowed for shading and different values. I then sealed the whole thing with Krylon Kamar Varnish (one coat), and then one coat of acrylic Matte Medium. It's clear, locks the pencil lines in, and prevents too much of the oil from seeping into the paper. This is a trick I learned from James Gurney (Gurneyjourney.blogspot.com)

After laying in some background colors and basic tones, I went ahead and placed gear that was important to Zloi's likeness. Mainly, this is the bear claw bracers. Zloi's skin color is not consistent yet, because he actually has tattoos that glow orange. I haven't added all the layers yet, so I'm simply trying to anticipate a bit of the lighting. This above probably represents 2 hours of paint laying. 

After having let things dry for a day, I went in and added some variation in shadows all over. Although mostly notable in the face, this actually adds a ton of depth to the expression and pose. Now, I let the piece dry for another day.

With 3 more hours into the work, I have this to show. A much more homogeneous color scheme across the piece (with an exception of the hands, which still need to be finished). The piece is nearly done! Details for the gore of the beast killed at his feet are actually done randomly using a palette knife to help achieve some random textures. The effect ended up looking very natural!