This is a commission for my cousin that I have been working on. I started with pastel pencils and moved to hard pastels and soft pastels. I will put a few finishing touches on it, but am pretty satisfied with it. I will work on the eye lids some.
The big challenge here was the mouth. I didn't want to contend with all those teeth. You can't really see it in this reference photo, but the big smile in the original photo has lots of teeth and the grin closed the eyes somewhat. So, I changed the mouth to being closed
To do this, I had to shorten the chin and narrow the cheeks somewhat. Just a small amount, but these little adjustments requires knowledge of a face. I also changed the colors of the shirt and sweater for more color near the face.
I hope his grandmother likes it.
