Well, in my last post I said things were going a little slow…. let’s say things haven’t changed much. But, there has been some good progress made on our Laocoon piece, even if it’s not exactly fast.

When we left off before I was still blocking in the main shapes to make sure all of my proportions were correct. I got most of the figures blocked in, with a little bit of work to do on the serpents, but I ended up reaching a point where I had to start making visible progress in order to get things moving. So, I ended up leaving some of the central action for a later time since I’ll be working top left down to bottom right (I’m right handed). That leaves me a little time to start rendering some forms and get a feel for where we’re going. Sometimes my brain just needs that change in scenery in order to refresh and build momentum. In this shot you’ll also see that I’ve printed out some copies of the previous studies to remind myself of what I did with different portions previously.

Once I finished mapping out some details in Laocoon’s face I decided it would be a good time to start rendering some of his anatomy. That allows me to get most of his arm done, his facial features and hair, and a lot of his upper torso. Really that’s a large portion of the work to be done and should set me pretty far ahead. In this shot I’ve just wrapped up all of his facial features and started rendering the arm with some base values. I’ll come back and darken things up once I have more of the piece going.

His armpit here is actually one of the challenges for me since there was originally another length of the serpent wrapping his arm right there, which is now broken off. If you remember from previous posts, I’m recreating some portions in my own vision while trying to humanize the figure a little more than the original. Since the reference images of the statue don’t include the muscle structure right there, I had to bring out my anatomy mirror. I actually took this photo as a joke to show that I’m too tall, but it shows a method that’s important for determining some muscular forms – the anatomy reference we all carry around every day. This is also one of the few pictures that exist of me at work – “Limited Edition”???

As you can see, I still have quite a bit of work to wrap up before my December 31st deadline, but I think I can make it. If you’re in need of any last minute gifts for the Holidays, you can always order a print for your loved ones from my Saatchi Art profile. You have your choice of sizes and materials at the click of a button. Just head over to saatchiart/allenmewes to see the current listings available.