Update on Holbein's Thomas More copy

"What I did on my summer vacation"  Never enough but in a few short words I started repainting the face, fur, gold chain and drapes...

I started on the drapes two days ago, working from right to left and stopping just above the cap. What I'm trying to do is in this pass is to get a better sense of the shape of folds on the cloth moving in and out of the light... At the same time, I'm taking out some of the chroma in the original sap green, dulling it down with gray.  Strangely, in the original, the "greenness" also varies considerably from one side to the other, as if the artist didn't quite get a consistent mix. Plus it looks as the he either used very thin washes of green (to save money?) or that the green was stripped away after multiple cleanings. In photos of Holbein's painting, I can see right through the green down to the gesso layer plastered on top of the oak panel.

The fur has been very easy to render but the golden letter "esses" and the pair of tiny chain linking them are torture for me. I've blocked them in quickly but need to resize each one so they're consistent, even as they twist and rotate around the neck. In the original, they're modelled like pieces of chiselled metal with bevelled edges. As they move into the darkness at the shoulders, the gold areas of the letters become smaller and the bevelled edges in burnt sienna become more prominent; the curves in the "esse" shift as well. There's so much care taken in Holbein's painting of these small details that he must have spent a considerable amount of timing getting it just right... Each letter "esse" is truly unique.

The hands will be treated next...