So I had another whack at the Jonathan Strange portrait I posted a while back. I was trying to get a sort of 19th century portraiture feel. The previous version, I felt was kind of too caricatured, and didn't feel as much like the character, looking back. Here, I'm trying to get disheveled-yet-brilliant...
Anyway, it's obviously not finished yet, but I'm getting closer! In the back the intention is to get a lot of those accoutrements common to Georgian-era portraits... like the busts of famous people and curtains and all that hanging in the back. I've been getting a lot of inspiration from the paintins of Ingres, who (though french) was contemporary with the period the book (Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, by Suzanna Clarke of course) was set in.
Enjoy!