I've had this peice just hanging up on my wall, not submitted to Devart for far too long...
honestly, this is my own personal favorite in my body of work, so far...
and even though I did it a few years ago (either late 2004 or early 2005), it still holds up as my best work yet... at least in my opinion...

It's definitely been the one i've gotten the most praise about, and the only peice of artwork i've ever won an award for... (an Honerable mention at the BAFFA art show in Sayville, New York on April 10, 2005)
well, I don't know if anybody would concider an honorable mention at an art show a REAL award, but I concider it my greatest achivement in art yet...

I think what really impressed them was the level of detail in which I put into the hair, if you look closely, you'll notice that I spent lots of time with the hair, making each strand stand out, I wanted this to be really good, and it turned out that way, too...

The referance I used was from a magazine, they had a photo of a guy, I cut it out, and used a grid to get the proportions correct... the grid is half of the reason it came out so great, I made the original sketch with a number 2 pencil, and then went over it with an Ebony pencil...

The only regret that I have about this version is that it has that glare from the light... see, I don't have a scanner big enough to fit this, so I couldn't scan it in, so I had to take a picture of it, and it got a glare on the glass frame...
I decided to desaturate it to get all of the blue out that I got from the glare, and to make it more look like the original...

Maybe someday i'll take it out of the frame and take a picture of it, resulting in better quality... I think it deserves to be shown in a better light than this... and once I do upload that re-taken photo, I might even make a print of it! that is, if I decide to make a prints account, lol...