World Building Week 10: Wrinkles

This weeks concept is based around.... wrinkles! I'm still not sure if i want to do a creature or character, as wrinkled old people have so much character it could be fun.

I'm currently leaning towards doing an old wise warrior, extremely wrinkled and perhaps not quite at his peak, but still wears his garments / armour and watches guard. Also another possibility could be to do a couple - husband and wife. It could be quite an interesting contrast to have an extremely old and worn husband and wife sat eating and having a laugh, whilst their knives and weapons lay around them, ready to attack anyone who dares interrupt them. (the bottom photo of my reference sheet was an inspiration for this)

Here is my reference sheet so far:

Bit of a shoddy attempt at sketches this time, but here are 2 faces from reference, studying loosley where and how wrinkles form. I'll add to these tonight hopefully so it's more substantial.  (the crappy landscape in the top left was a sketch from before)

Another sketch, using multiple references. Little wonky in areas and it still needs more wrinkles but i think that i will fix it up and add some shading / volume to it and use it as a base for my final in photoshop.

Some more progress on the sketch, it's midnight so A) i don't have a scanner B) it's damn hard to focus. So not the best quality, will need to remember to scan it tomorrow at uni as it would provide a more sufficient base for photoshop.  I'm not too keen on the eyes, the overall expression and the lighting. Hah. But i do like the forms and the technique, so i'll still use it as a base but will likely do a lot of changes during the digital paint process.

A better scan of the sketch:

Annnd the final thing, with some progress stages:

It's been years since i've done portraits (i used to do 'photo-real' graphite portraits about 3 years ago) but this was fun, i really enjoyed using the tinted paper and white pencil combination and also how well the texture preserves in the digital sketch. I am also slowly learning how to integrate photos into my work to add texture, if i were to finish this one up i would paint over the textures some more, mostly the fur / leather.

I believe my anatomy / proportions are sufficient however i need to practice facial expressions more in order to enhance and bring more life into my characters. Not anything too drastic, just being able to know how to use the subtleties to help it.