Rattlesnake Step by step

For once I had the forethought to take some intermediate photos of a painting.

Here is my "scrap".  Both my own photos taken in the wild and at an educational event with Sonoma County Reptile Rescue. respectively...

A very pretty yearling from the hinterlands of Oakland, CA

.

This photo is actually fairly bad at any kind of usable size. Very grainy, but I loved the pose and you could never get a shot like this of an adult rattlesnake in the wild.  Here, she is in a tiny Acrylic box.

 The idea sketch

 Laying out the scales accurately.  Referencing proper scale count per row
(diagonal rows)

and laying out concentric lines around the form
then filling that in with an alternating brick pattern

you can see the grid on this one and the same area as above with the scales drawn in.

also started filling in patterning and rendering a bit more whenever drawing scales got 

to be tiresome.

Finished preliminary sketch

Reproduced in cyan and applied to illustration board, then spay fixed before painting.

 Pretty clear separation of steps here.  notice how TERRIBLE it looks in the first few layers.

In order to keep the scales accurate, I had do paint them individually, so as

not to make a big mess.

The finished acrylic painting.