“ 'N boer maak ‘n plan” is a good old South African Afrikaans saying for making a plan. Exactly what was needed to get the detail for the eye on my Sabi Sands Leopard. To me the eyes are always the most critical part of a painting, and because of the small size of the original photo, it was hard to see much eye detail, even once it had been blown up. This meant that I had to use a good source photo to establish a base that I could then work off of. Fortunately for me, one of the source photos I found, once it had been inverted, had the head angle and aspect of that of the one I am working on. As you can see, I had to work between the two to get what I wanted. Next step…colour
the original photo enlarged but lacking in eye detail
the source photo I ended up working from to establish a good base for the eye
combining the two
caught in action
the end result