Arturo Elena - Female Face Break Down

I am now going to break down a few illustrations from Arturo Elena's work in order to familiarise myself with his style and technique.  I have started with the face again in the same way I did with Hanna Muller's work.

First 4 stages involves marking the centre-lines on the face,
before adding the lips, nose & eyes

The next 4 steps involve adding eyebrows, hair, ears & the body

My finished illustration which was completed using a pencil study for the
female and watercolour paint for the background

I am pleased with my completed illustration as I feel that it looks quite similar to Arturo's original illustration however I decided to do a little more work on my drawing in Photoshop in order to create a much more sleek illustration. My finished illustration which was completed on Photoshop is shown below.  I blurred the 'zebra-like' background using the gaussian blur tool and I then used the smudge tool to work into my own pencil drawing, before adding a new layer with extra definition on the hair, eyes, lips and dress as shown in the screenshot below.

Screenshot which shows the gaussian blur tool which was
used to blur the 'zebra-like' background being 

I am extremely pleased with my completed illustration which is attached below as I feel that I have been able to recreate the prominent features from Arturo's work.  I have contrasted the imposing female illustration with a subtle yet striking background whilst managing to maintain the femininity of the illustration.  In my opinion, my finished work looks relatively similar to Arturo's own illustration which is shown underneath my own replica.

This is my finished illustration which was manipulated
on Photoshop from my original pencil  study

Arturo Elena's original illustration
Image available at: http://www.mobile.twitter.com/#!/ArturoElena
[Accessed: 24 January 2012]