The next step was to detail the rest of the image, starting with the hair. From this point onwards I made a lot of small adjustments, starting with the face. It is important to get the correct levels of dark in the shadow and show how the skin reflects the light. I made sure that the levels of light and dark made the skin look slightly transparent. I then continued to give the image depth by intensifying the shadowed areas and distinguishing between the different areas such as the face and hair, and the hair and the background.

As you can see, it was a case of building on the image layer by layer and at this point I found it necessary to concentrate on the highlights as this helped to enforce the feeling of volume, particularly in the hair. I had to remember that the highlights and the shadow needed to be considered together, as the lighter the highlights are the darker the shadow seems. It is always important to remember the contrast (Fig.08).


I continued to paint the hair carefully and then started to focus on the eyes and lips. It was important to show that these are reflective by using strong, carefully-placed highlights. At the same time I thought it was important to strengthen the shadows around the face (Fig.09).


I constantly added to the face, mainly adding to the light and shadow. It is important to look at the full image at this point to get a better idea of how the image is developing, so the image as a whole can be adjusted. The next step was also to start to add some feathers. The technique I used was to draw one feather and then copy it and adjust it in the different locations. I did this over about four layers, which also contained the light and shadow (Fig.10).



I thought that the hair still needed further work so I increased the hardness of the brush and decreased its size (Fig.11a). I also changed the brush Jitter and Flow control to "Pressure”. It was very important to make sure that the hair didn't look flat by varying its thickness and transparency. You can see the brushes I used in Fig.11b.