Emilia Clarke

Another charcoal portrait, this time of actress Emilia Clarke, who will probably always be chased by the name “Khaleesi”. Here, she is portraying a young Sarah Connor from Terminator Genisys. Not a good movie! She has some pretty amazing lips, though. That’s something I’ve been trying to work on in my faces lately.

I was struck how painterly the application of charcoal is. More so than what I’ve been doing with my paints, the process of which could be described as sculpting with the blend tool. Most of my attempts as using paints with less than 100% opacity have been quite rough (see Teknekt for an example). But for whatever reason it’s working for me with the charcoals. It’s like going back to my early time with Krita, layering pigment over and over, but this time without the blend tool at all. Somewhere in here is the answer to my unsatisfying attempts at “round brush” paints.

The hair is terrible once again. Picking out strands with charcoal was probably a poor choice.