Lots of people ask me how I get so much detail into my animal paintings, so I thought it would be helpful to show the
various steps that may go in to a painting.
This happens to be an ACEO miniature of a fawn. This was my very first time painting a deer, so the process was
slow but well worth the wait.
In this first view, I have sketched the deer on the paper. A little bit of the background has been mapped out.
I blocked in his eyes, because it is the single most important feature on any animal, and I always work on the eyes towards
the beginning of a painting.
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In the second view, I have added the first washes of color, being careful to leave the paper untouched wherever I feel
I may want to keep pure white later.
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I have now added his nose, which I need painted now to give better form to his face. I have also added some highlighting
to his eyes to better explore his character. I have found that once the eyes are perfected, everything else seems to
flow from that.
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In view #4 I have deepened shading in places and begun the detail fur work to his face. I have also played around
with some darker colors in the background.
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Here in view #5 you can clearly see the detail showing the different directions the fur is growing. More color,
especially the darkest colors, has been added to make the lighter colors "pop".
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And, finally, here is the finished painting!
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