Ya Gotta Have Faith...

That's what I have to say to myself every time I start a new project. The beginning of each piece I do starts out looking like this: a mess! I have an end result in mind, but it takes many, many hours of work and belief that I can make it look good, before I get to a point that I can look at the piece without cringing.

I'm not sure how others work, but this is my standard procedure for starting all pieces. I was taught in art school to always start loose and work my way tighter, and that's pretty much how I do it. Sometimes I use an airbrush for my base coats, but for greys like this one, it will be so covered up that it's pointless to go to the trouble (plus my airbrush station is filled with bodies-in-prepping). So for this piece, I've started with some warm grey washes in acrylic. This will be a dapple grey when it's finished.