Papa T

I was commissioned by my friend Pat's mother to do a portrait of her father as Mr.T, since he appears to have been obsessed B.A. Baracus from the A-Team. This was a birthday present for her daughter, who found it rather hilarious that her Papa was so obsessed with Mr.T. in the first place.

I sent these initial sketches to Nancy and asked which one she liked, and she said that they were all too awesome to pick. She told me to pick which ever one I thought would work best; the last one was my favorite so I went ahead with that drawing.

Pencils
At first I had started the drawing on another piece of paper that reacted poorly to water, it would just instantly buckle when I applied the watercolors. So I had to start over and as I drew in Papa T and I decided it needed something more. And what would be more appropriate than a giant explosion?
Ink
I had decided to add some bullet holes to the inked version to make it look like the A-Team logo. I also decided to carry this onto the matte and cut bullet holes into the matte and colored the insides with ink.
Paint
I wish my scanning bed was a little bigger it seems that everything I paint is just a little too big for the bed. I couldn't get a good scan but here is the general look. I had planned this painting to fit in this gold frame that I had in my possession for a while. I figured that a picture of Mr. T could be in nothing else.
Matte and frame
Originally on the matte I had painted the words "I pity the fool" in gold letters in a stencil font. However, I didn't take into account that the frame covered the matte so much and it cut off the bottom of the words. I didn't really know what to do about it, Laura suggested that I just paint the whole matte gold, which turned out awesome! I think Mister T would approve.
Nancy really liked it, Kelsey really liked it and they told me that Papa could recognize himself, so I count it a success.