Face at the Fobidden City

Finally, it's finished. In my last post I scanned it at the stage I enjoy most - with just the face - because after that it's just decoration and I get impatient to finish up! There are a few things about this that I'm not happy with but I'm keen to do something else now and I want to call it done.

I used a combination of Polychromos Burnt Carmine and Scarlet Red on the cap. It was actually much brighter in the photo but I felt that would overpower the face and the Burnt Carmine went better with the skin tones. I used Black to shade. I didn't have the right blue for the jacket so it's made up of layers of Polychromos Cold Grey and (Faber Castell) Albrecht Durer Dark Indigo. I try to avoid using the Albrecht Durer pencils as they are watersoluble but I didn't have anything close in the Polychromos of Lyras. There is a barely noticable background of Polychromos Sky Blue just because I felt like it - you'd probably never see a blue sky in Beijing! I'm not sure who these men were wearing red caps at the Forbidden City but they looked as if they were there to keep an eye on everyone.