3: color

This shows how the white paint has helped the other colors. Color will always have a level of transparency depending on the amount of white used.

Step 6: Color and shading

On this hand, after the darkest parts have been painted, I went back and created gradients with lighter colors. There's a lot of "back and forth" in the painting process (with acrylics).

Step 1: Background, part 1

The general color of the gradient fade of the logs are used. Here, there are 3 layers of this strategy applied to get a good, solid layer. The object is to get rid of loose, painterly brush strokes.

Step 6: Color

Not too much color is needed given the reference but, there are several shades of brown, earth tones, are a key element in making this 3-dimensional. Note how the blending is different on the horns versus the hair.

Step 11: The Hands, part 3

Here, the shading and the highlighting was applied to the hands. The light casing down from above was perfect from the picture I took. Most often times, it ends up being easier to go out and shoot the reference, yourself, rather than hunting online from stock photography or whatever.

Step 3: Color Correction

One of the things that I want everyone to realize is that you are not always going to hit "perfection" the first time. You will always find yourself modifying and correcting. Painting is fun and relaxing but, it can also be frustrating at times. In this image, I am building the base color of what I want the feathers to be before I go into the detail.