Pallas Athena - Goddess of many skills!

I set myself a challenge when tackling this subject!!! The first was the size of the painting. This is the first time I've created an egg tempera painting larger than 29 x  21cm (A4). As I have posted before, the inspiration came from visiting the excellent Cast Gallery at the Classical Archaeological Museum in Cambridge, UK, http://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/museum/
​ So many subjects to choose from. The following photos show the latter stages of progress with this intriguing image.

I wanted a gold colour for Athena's dress, so it meant beginning with a strong yellow, but then toning it back with a layer of white. Next item was to define the folds in the dress, this is a complicated design by the original sculptor!!!! The helm and shield are copper/bronze, (I wasn't sure which) again not an easy colour to emulate. The same goes for the scale armoured overshirt  The flesh tones on the face began beyond the verdigris base colour.

The head and shoulders on the left shows the changes I made to the final look of Athena's features. In the middle is the torso with the complicated dress design and armour shawl, this has snakes around the fringe!!! On the right are the dress hems and footwear, made simple!!! 

Below the finished painting it all it's glory!!!!!!!

This sort of original painted image on gessoed board would be sold at:
£450.00 GBP or €585 EUR.