For this portrait, I wanted something unique that would stand out and make you take a second look.
For my Subject matter, I wanted to do Jared Leto. He is an actor, starring in films such as Dallas Buyers Club, Suicide Squad, and Requiem for a Dream. As well as a Singer/Artist for 30 Seconds to Mars. At first, I wanted to do something inspired by Drew Struzan who did the posters for Star Wars, Blade Runner and Indiana Jones. I soon found out that it doesn’t really work visually for just one person so I had this idea about splitting the portrait into two portraits. One to represent Jared Leto as an actor and one to portray Jared Leto.
Feature wise for Jared Leto, his eyes are a strong point in recognising him more than anything else. So, for me getting them right is important. I was thinking about how to catch a viewer’s eye with the piece and different techniques I could use to pull your eyes into artwork. At first, it seemed very silly, but I wanted to create something that would catch your eye while looking and it. So, what if I went really on the nose with the intent and add a second eye below one of the eyes? It created this sort of energy about the piece. I found it giving me this weird emotion from looking at it, I didn’t like looking at it yet felt compelled to out of interest. I showed what I had to a few friends to see how they felt and it came out the same. It kind of compliments the intense nature of the Joker Character that Jared Leto Played in Suicide Squad. I liked the idea of the Joker character too because the Green hair would allow me to use more red tones in the shading of the other half of the portrait to complement each other.
Once I got a general idea painted out roughly, I realised that it would be a hassle to paint both these portraits on the same layer so I’ve cut them out into their own separate groups. This allows me to paint each face without the colours mixing over on to each other.
I roughly went over with a small brush where everything goes to keep as an overlay which helps keep me on track when painting.
For the beard, I wanted to be fairly loose about it and not make it too detailed. So, I’ve used brush strokes to gesture the beard, then went over with a small brush to add some sense of random strands. I’ve also used the mixer brush to smear the paint down. When I was looking at it without the smear, my eyes focused straight to his eyes. However, using downward smears of paint, it pulls your focus down to help guide how you look at the piece.
Eyes! Now this is the part I had to make sure looked like Jared Leto, so I had to be detailed here. However, it would also look a bit off too if there was too much detail so I made sure to make sure the shape of his eyes and the iris were more accurate than anything else.
Hopefully, this explains a few things with the ideas and techniques I had used to create this. Here a short video of the steps I made to create it. If you have any questions feel free to message me.
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