The illustrative portrait project was interesting to undertake. In order to explore facial shapes, forms, and characteristics, I did a series of quick gestural sketches of Joe Pesci's face to study his features and which features are required for his face to appear as his own. The idea was to illustrate a famous person without making the portrait neither too realistic nor too caricaturistic; the idea was to use the natural shapes in the person's face to showcase a personality feature of the person.
In addition to a series of quick gestural sketches, to explore how color and technique contributed to the portrait, I did a series of gestural mixed media experiments with various mediums to flush out my favorite sketches.
After the mixed media experiments were complete, I developed the final product of the illustration. Unfortunately, my favorite mixed media experiments were done in watercolor and watercolor pencil with ink pen, and the watercolors did not scan well at all because the scanner doesn't always understand the transitional tones that the eye can see (aka the watercolor tones were "out of gamut"). My attempt to photoshop in and smooth out the color tones was a little blotchy and messy, which needs work. I hope to revisit this project at a later time to use my new wacom tablet to enhance and sharpen his detail and smooth out some of the shakiness of the lines/color transitions. Also, I think some of my sketches look more like Joe Pesci than my actual final product. I think his jaw-line need to be wider and he needs to be balder on the top.
My word for Joe Pesci was "volatile", so for the final design, I explored his facial planes and shadowing to make him appear as such.
