A DIY acrylic character painting: process

First: I painted the canvas black. This way I would have to worry less about drawing the shape of the features and use the black to create the outline for the features, such as the teeth and eye.
*since I had never painted a face before in my life, I was really scared and took baby steps like these below:


Then: I graphed the photograph into small bite-size squares (using rows and columns)



Then: I graphed the canvas into the same amount of rows and columns as the photograph



Then: I chalked out the rough image square by square. Stepped back and took a deep breath.


And using the lessons I learned from the YouTube tutorial by Larry Seiler, I painted the areas stroke by stroke.

*the graph lines disappear as you paint in the area

AND THERE YOU HAVE IT, YOUR VERY OWN DIY ACRYLIC PAINTING!

A DIY acrylic character painting

With a lot of encouragement and yearning for a character painting of our favorite artist, this acrylic was conceived. The paintings at the store were priced $8,000 and up so we had no choice but to DIY. Thanks to a helpful YouTube tutorial (Alla Prima Brushstroke Exercise by Larry Seiler), a canvas and some good brushes--we now have our (first) character painting and it cost under $70.