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Hi:) so as you can tell, i chose to use Matt Leblanc, otherwise known as Joey Tribbiani from the famous old time show 'Friends'. for my portrait At first when i was thinking about who to draw, i knew i wanted to do someone who had nice facial features because it is definitely easier to draw and you can also do a lot of things with those perfect features . So when i suddenly remembered Matt Leblanc, i immediately chose him because he had good facial proportions, a nice nose, nice eyebrows, nice cheekbones, and the bonus is that he is handsome so i wouldn't mind studying his face for hours:D

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so i chose to proceed with my first sketch for this ica because the facial features are very define and clear for this image and i had many ideas for this sketch.

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before even starting my actual work, i knew i wanted to paint the face, but i do not know much about our skin tone colours and shades, moreover my reference pic was also in grey scale so it'll be more of a challenge for me, and so i went to research on paintings which used primary colours and shades to make shadow and highlights.

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after researching, i decided to do a digital draft because it is easier to change and edit my work there, so i wanted to test out and see how everything will come together.
i made the background monochromatic black/grey as indicated in my initial sketch. i chose a monochrome black theme for the background as i wanted to colour the face, thus i didn't want to make the whole art piece too confusing. so i also didn't add too many layers, just to keep it simple

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so i tried out different shades and tones/tints with the help of the researched references i found. it was really hard so i honestly just put whatever colour i felt like should be there, while referring back to the reference picture of my sketch to see wheres the shadows and so on. shockingly after 1-2 hours, i managed to come up with a nice draft:D for a first timer i think i did preeeetty okay:D what do you think:)

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after finishing the draft. i started on my actual portrait. I laid out the backgrounds, cut from magazines, colour paper and recycle paper and as i said earlier, i didn't make it too messy.
i drew out the person on the layer i was going to paint on

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i tried to paint as similar as i could to the digital draft and it really made me realise how much harder it is to paint on paper as i had to wait for the paint to dry, i had to mix the paints and figure out how to get the different shades by trial and error, and not by the colour option side bar in the computer apps.
honestly, at half way through, i really wanted to give up and redo it, and by really, i meant 'I've already decided to give up', but i decided to take a shower to refresh my mind instead. Luckily after the shower i realised art isn't about perfection and there is no right and wrong to it, so even though my Matt Leblanc looked like a zombie at the moment, i'll just continue to pursue the art piece

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i decided to merge some of my ideas from the other 2 sketches into this. i'll explain more about how i used each material later

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i used fabric for the hair because when Mr Daryl suggested i use threads for the hair, i just thought of sewing :D
i thought very hard about how i was going to cut the shape of hair out, i thought of using a pen to draw (didn't work) , needles (poke myself instead), freestyle (didn't work either). and so i decided to use tape, which was a crazy idea even to me, and i honestly didn't think it to work,  but it shockingly did! very well even!
so after cutting, i sewed it and pasted tape behind because i realised that the tape holds the cloth very well, allowing the cloth to not be flimsy (i almost threw the cloth i spent hours on because it was so flimsy that it blended in with the rubbish-_-) and finally i ironed it to straighten it up and i glued it to my painting

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the white/silver threads are meant to serve as the highlights of the hair

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i used plastic bag as the material of the shirt, and you might wonder, why not use fabric for the shirt and plastic for the hair instead? that is indeed a good question because i too only realised after i prepared and cut and sewed everything. but i like to switch it up, plus i don't think my idea was bad at all either, i think it came out just the way i wanted and its different from others.
i painted the plastic bag black and i crushed it very hard for it to have texture. the back layer of plastic wasn't part of ,y idea at first, (i accidentally cut the wrong side), but i tried to put both as 2 layers, it looked quite good together so i added it in

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i used the fishing line to layer the shape and folds of the shirt to give it an extra layer instead of just using a marker to draw o the plastic and i painted it black. it was honestly really hard to deal with because the line ins naturally bent, so i had to find ways to straighten it, i  also couldn't use glue to stick it (i have not found my super glue at that time). i ended up using tape because i can always paint over it. but the bad thing was that i'm pasting tape on plastic, so unless i want to ruin the whole thing, i can't pull out the tape, so it was a go big or go home situation. luckily it ended up looking quite decent and it did give an extra feel to the "shirt"

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yes make up. i wanted to highlight his facial features as u can tell in the picture above. it looks good in real life but sadly it doesn't show too well on camera.
i used different kinds of glitter make up i had; powdered highlighter, liquid glitter and so on. i found out that the liquid on worked the best but a disadvantage was that my liquid glitter was in pink so when i wanted did the trial and error on which side is good to apply glitter, it was hard to remove without leaving a stain

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to highlight his beautiful features even more, i used paper clips to shape it into the shapes as shown above and it successfully highlighted the features like his cheekbones and eyebrows really well

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this was initially my final product, but after that i saw more materials with potential, and as we all know, art can never be completed, the more inspiration comes, the more materials go on the board:D

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final 2 materials!!!
i used the sponge as 1 of the eyebrows, since one side had the paper clip highlight, i realised how plain the other side looked, so i decided to add some volume. i actually wanted to put cotton wool at first, but i figured the sponge looked good too. i coloured the sponge black because the original colour (grey) looked weird
lastly, i saw the piece of cotton wool that i was going to use for the eyebrow and i thought it'll be a waste to not use it because of its texture, so when i looked at the right side of the face, i found a good placement on the cheeks and so i painted it light beige and cut it in a triangle. But sadly, it is also not visible on the camera.

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yay