Hannibal of Carthage

The second bust I picked up with Vlad was Hannibal. He comes from Black Heart Models and is very well done - no bubbles and only the faintest of a seamline. First step after a washing is to prime - 

While I would have thought that Hannibal was on Middle Eastern decent (I don't know why) the sculpt is made to looks distinctly African. So that's the way we're going to go. After a base coat in Leather Brown, it just made him look weird. So I started again with a Black Brown.  From there I had a Dark Flesh, but that was too yellow and too light. I'm always jumping too far when making my highlights. So once again a redo with the Black Brown. This time I took a little Flesh and added it to the Black brown. For each each highlight, I just added a tiny bit more of the flesh. The beard was left the Black Brown darkened with a few coats of Citadel's Nuln Oil. His eyes were first done in the Leather Brown, but I thought this made the bust too monotone, so they were redone with Green Violet.

I wanted to make the helmet leather instead of some kind of metal, and using the leather brown would make the whole bust too dark, so I used red Leather on the helmet and chest protector. The straps were painted an ocher orange. 

The easiest thing would be to make the animal skin to be a lion and just use some golden yellow color, but no, I have to be different. So I looked up Africa's other cat - the Leopard. 
The Leopard's spots are really between 3 and 5 smaller spots in a crude circle. To add interest, I made the inside of the circle a bit lighter. As you get toward the Leopard's legs and belly the color changes from an orange to almost white. The spots also become small and are single spots. This is what I tried. 

The band of the helmet and the medallions were banded in Bronze with a silver highlight. I liked it and decided to quit while I was ahead.  Thanks for looking.