First Knight

It's done, or at least nearly done. First off let me just say that armor is hard and so are feathers and while I'm at it, faces are too. Especially if the reference is only partially there. The face is a combination of an old black and white pic that I used for the drawing and a Sargent portrait that I used for color. I'll probably go back in to the hands a tad more and maybe glaze down the background ever so lightly but for the most part I like it. It'll be the last entry into the opera book, though it will fall in the "L's" . I like the concept, didn't really over think it. Since Lohengren is a holy knight on a holy quest and he comes in on a boat pulled by swans it was a natural solution to superimpose them so the swan supports his angelic self. And the sword also doubles as a cross.  It was a fun piece, took me the better part of a week from the start of reference gathering to the final strokes. Might have gone faster if I had a suit of armor laying around and an actual model. But one thing I learned as an illustrator is to make do. In fact sometimes cool things happen when you have to make up a bunch of stuff. It's 24x30 and I started with a pretty full tonal drawing, then washed over it 3 times with burnt sienna, each time wiping out the lights to get a full tonal effect. One note; if I were to do it over again I probably would've rendered the wings en grisaille (monochromatic) and then glazed it with oranges and ochres to warm it up and then paint over it. It was a bear to get the wings to feel like they are slowly losing their light without changing hue. I may still glaze it to unify it some. Anyway the knight is done.