Work on the portrait progressed incredibly difficult. A poor quality photograph was used as a reference. The exact outlines of the eyes and the lines of the mouth were practically invisible, and they had to be restored from barely noticeable shadows and hints of light.
The characters I draw always look like the original, because I don’t redraw the photo, but draw the people that are in the photo. I do not have the task of making a copy from a photo, I depict the characteristic personality traits and convey the mood of the characters, taking into account their physical parameters and lighting features.
You can easily notice that the image in the photo is flat, while in the oil painting the faces have volume and stand out in space.