Obama Test Portrait

As an artist my two mediums of choice are oil painting and digital illustration. I've been on the fence about how to reconcile these two very different approaches, but after finally getting a wacom tablet of my own I decided to try to do a digital illustration with the same approach I usually take when painting. I also incorporated some of the elements from my pastel work in figure drawing where I used a wide selection of unusual colors (such as the oranges and greens) to help flesh out the skin tones. I wanted to do a portrait to test this new approach and decided to tackle Obama. There was no preliminary work, I just jumped right in with the tablet and I think from the finished product this is definitely a sign of good things to come.