So, not that this is new information or anything, but faces are hard.
Like, really hard. That being said, outside of my rushed shading job, I think I actually really like the look of the skin-tone technique, now that I’m more or less implementing it properly. It’s the technique that I failed to properly follow with the arm painting, wherein the value layer is actually a mix of whites, grays, and transparency, on top of an underlying base coat for the darker values. The advantage of this is that you end up with a slightly transparent “skin” layer of value that can be colored as you like, but you can inject another layer with varying strengths of red underneath it, simulating the natural translucency of the skin, and allowing for variation of coloration. The end result can actually look really nice, with practice, so you can bet I’ll be giving it some practice.
Speaking of practice, while I am absolutely loving this new technique (which by the way involves building up values from dark to light, rather than the traditional other way around), it can only do so much. It’s very forgiving of relatively minor issues of line, and even proportion to a certain degree, since you can kind of sculpt the values to correct faults in the original sketch, but you still need to know what it is you are actually trying to sculpt. So with that in mind, I decided to spend a bit more time going back over some of the basic features of the face, starting with the nose since I really feel like this one was particularly dreadful. Much practice is still needed, but that’s really the point of this whole exercise. And honestly, I still think it’s finally starting to pay off, even if my face drawing ended up looking mysteriously like Nicholas Cage. And no, that wasn’t originally the plan, though I think my next one may intentionally be a Cage pic, based on actual reference, just to see how it comes out.