Self Portrait Project Pt.2

I've made quite a bit of progress since my last post. I had no idea where to start with the skin tone, so I spent quite a while just mixing paint and painting over it. I started by filling in the neck and face with a base coat that was my estimation of skin tone.

Creepy looking, I know. And WAY to pale. I tried to go in and add some shadows and hightlights but really couldn't visualize the colors right. Here was my first attempt:

Yuck. I was getting very discouraged, so my professor suggested I go in and fill in the hair with only a base coat of the darkest shade. I also added a wash of blue-gray for the background.

I decided that I'd tackle an eye next, because I wasn't ready to try the skin again. I spent about 2 hours on this eye:

The shadow of the lid was too black, so after a million different mixes, I settled on a redder color. I used this as the base of my new skin tone shade, adding a little burnt sienna and titanium white to lighten, and some cadmium red to darken. I finally figured out how to give the skin the color and texture I want. I am using the smallest brush I have to add the paint so it blends smoothly. In this last shot, you'll see all the progress I've made so far. The eye and cheek are coming together nicely, and I'm hoping the rest will go as smoothly. I do think that I may need to take out some red later, but this is a nice start.