...on to the step by step......
1-I started out with a quick pose. He had to look tough but somewhat at ease. I used head counts to keep my proportions correct.
2-Rather than having his hands at his sides, i placed them on his belt line.
3-I tried to give him a 'rhythm' but not feeling his pose. Looks more like he's posing for a fashion mag instead of seeming like a warrior. Once i got the muscle definition down, i dropped a gray tone 'overlay' over the figure.
4-With the gray overlay added, i began to 'erase' out the highlights/whites and painted in a black background for blending purposes. Gave him an 'at ease' pose as you would find in a martial arts class. After all he is a martial artist.5-Now that i have the pose i want, i can focus on the blending of the form. I cropped the bottom in to see more of the actual standing pose and his belt and added some reflective light.
6-Refining the muscle tone and pants.
7-Here you see the left arm's proportions adjusted.
8-Detail and tone added to the figure and pants. An overall rounding of the form.
9-Finishing of the left arm and some 'small details'
10-More refining
11-Color added to the eyes and pants
12-Highlights for the pants
13-Tattoos added. It was tricky for me to get the right 'golden' look of the tattoos. They had to match the color of the original comic character's but also had to seem somewhat realistic. I created to 2 layers (a flat yellow green and an orange) and set them both to overlay. All hand painted using the airbrush, smear tool and eraser.
14-Blue overlay.
15-Color added to the reflective light and highlights added to give shine to the gold tattoos
Brass Demur painted in Photoshop