My portrait art in 2013:
Gotta say, this year has very much been about experimenting. Up until February, I'd never even touched colour in portraiture, I still don't know what I'm doing half the time in photoshop, I'm creating or finding new brushes to use every other week, and I am trying to develop a style rather than just be a human photocopier.
I've always been about the detail, thinking that if a portrait didn't replicate their every feature exactly, it wasn't any good - but this year I've been trying to force myself not to let my OCD take over when drawing and have tried to give myself a little more freedom. This first took form with crazy leaf brushes at the beginning of the year, but I soon realised that creating a style would take a bit more effort than just mixing up my brushes.
Then the Les Mis cast stole my life and I went back to being particular about detail again - and I'm not saying I'm not proud of some of what I'm going to tentatively call my hyper-realistic stuff around that time... but I wanted more character. And unfortunately dramatic lighting does not necessarily equal character.
So I went all experimental again from about the middle of the year and although I'm certainly not done yet - I'm finding I'm more at peace with what I'm producing at the moment. It's not Great Art by any measure, but it's got more of ME in it than anything I've done in the past, and I'm content with that.