My Musings: Two Dimensional Design Final Project

Okay so when this assignment was explained to the class I think I became instantly depressed. The project sounded terrifyingly impossible: Design Playing Cards-King, Queen, Jack, Ace, Joker and the design for the back of the card. Oh, and here is a catch: They have to be flippable and have a cool transition and all fit into the same theme.

So yeah...I was scared. How on earth was I supposed to come up with a theme that had faces in it (which was a requirement), once I came up with the theme how was I supposed to execute it and once I did that how was I supposed to transition a mirrored and flipped image???

Well I ruminated on it for a bit and then I decided I wanted to do a Scotland theme. I made a mind map and decided that for the King I either wanted to do a strong buff attractive man or an old man. I realized that when I thought of hot buff men I was thinking Irish not Scottish so I decided to go with the old man. So I found a reference picture of an old man in profile and this is my initial drawing:

After I finished this drawing I felt so much better and I just knew I could do it. What I had done is I used tracing paper and traced the essential lines from this picture and traced a K and spade symbol and I transferred them to my paper and went over them with a sharpie pen.

Once I had this step finished I taped it down to my board and did a dark yellow acrylic wash so that it would look antiqued and filled in the K with a green guash. (I don't know if I spelled that right or not...get over it lol.) Here is my picture of this step:

I didn't know what to do next because I was really nervous about mixing a flesh tone so I waited to ask my teacher about what to do next. When I got to class he said that it didn't need a flesh tone just give us some shadow definition. So I used the same color I used for the wash and used less water to add some depth. Then I finished the scarf and put a bit more white in his hair and did a thicker outline. Here is my king: