All right, finally finished!!!!

It's a portrait of a young soldier (19 1/2 years old) who was killed in Iraq last summer. I'm doing this portrait for his family, free of charge as a part of SoldierPortraits.com, which is an organization of many artists who work in different media and who make these portraits for free to families of fallen soldiers of the Iraqi and Afghanistan conflicts.

The photo I got was a bit blurry and quite small, so when I blew it up it was even worse. I had to research the young man's unit to find out what his unit patch really looked like (it's on his right upper arm, as we see it). I changed the background as well. The picture was taken of him in the desert at night, so it was with a flash and the background, being at night, was completely black. Instead, I made the background different shades of brown (mostly Coloursofts) and just a touch of black, tuscan red, indigo blue, and dark green in the deepest shadows. I cropped the photo quite a bit because it was almost square in size.

I knew I got the flak jacket right when my husband (with twenty years of military experience) looked at it and could recognize the different parts right away. I wish he had explained all of that to me BEFORE I started working on it, it would have made a lot more sense and been easier!

The young man's mother has seen the painting and I got the ultimate praise - she immediately recognized her son and started crying, which of course started me crying. I REALLY must have got it right because I never had to make any changes to it. She said it looked like him and nothing needed to be changed. WOW!! Talk about making my day!

This is the second go at this portrait. I started it on BFK Rives paper, which I had done my praying child on and it came out just fine. However, in this instance, I felt like I was fighting the paper the whole time. I ended up stopping it half way through and started again on Colourfix paper. It went like a dream after switching papers.

It's all done and ready to be sprayed. I won't be making any changes to it, especially since the family is very happy with it, but all of your comments and critiques are welcome. I have two more to do after this as well, so the learning process is continuing, and C&C's will help on the next one.

EDIT: I just looked at it and thought some explanation was needed to clarify something. The young man's face was actually quite burned by the desert sun and since he had to wear goggles often, he was actually very pale all around his eyes. I didn't want to make his face quite like that, but I also didn't want it to be unrealistic. So I compromised. I made his skin around his eyes darker, but not completely equal to the rest of his face. That's why he has a kind of ring around his eyes.

Details: Prismas, Coloursofts, one Lyra pencil, two Verithins on sand colored Colourfix paper.
Accessories: A multitude of bristle and stencil brushes on sand colored Colourfix paper.
Size: 11" x 14"