Some Studies

Been into traditional art recently after walking around an art gallery back home in Manchester when I went to visit some old friends. One of the paintings I saw in Manchester was by Edmund Blair Leighton and his work was so good I felt compelled to do a study of one of them. The other painting is by William Bouguereau. A few of my colleagues undertook the task too and we were all perplexed by how subtle his colour choices and forms are. Well, back to the drawing board :P
Ive included some progress shots. As well as informing others its also good for me to see too so I can reassess my methods in future :P
My first step is to block out the image, I want to be accurate with the foundation and placements but not so much in the colour yet. That comes later when Im comfortable with the drawing stage. In the last step I fiddled around with the proportions after reviewing the image with the original some more.