Another commission for the lovely michael484 !

The Bersaglieri are a high mobility light infantry unit, first created in 1836 and are easily distinguished by the feathers they have on their hats or helmets. They have seen active participation in both World Wars and have used bicycles and motorcycles for increased mobility. They pretty much started out as a cheaper substitute for cavalry and became an early manifestation of the new doctrine of mobile warfare. Also, interestingly, Benito Mussolini served in the Bersaglieri in WW1.

I've started to enjoy commenting a bit on the technical side of my illustrations, so here goes! I've taken a lot of lessons from the previous commission (see Erik Ravenhome Doughboy) and came back to this brushy, more painterly style I used to employ. I tried to keep the painting high key from the beginning. In retrospect, one really good thing about this piece was that the uniform was pretty dark while the face was light grey. This was not planned, but fortuitous since if the character had a darker face the impact would have been lost. Pretty much everything in this piece was made to attract the eye to the face and hands. This midway gray background for example makes everything that is close to white stand out (muzzle, eyes etc), whereas a pure white background would have made everything close to black stand out, a very different feel.

All in all it was a pretty straightforward commission in which I got to apply quite a few of the things I've been perfecting. Let me know what you think below ^^!

If you're interested in commissioning me, I'm open! Feel free to check my prices here: https://www.weasyl.com/~pimpartist/submissions/1544401/commision-info and send me a note. Thank you for checking out my work!