I mentioned before that I'm an art instructor, and one of the classes I teach revolves around digital painting. This painting started out as a class demonstration and I continued to work on it afterward.
I was originally attracted to the reference because the subject had very interesting skin tones that I didn't have a lot of experience painting. I've painted a lot of people of color, but this mans skin contained a lot of violet and purple hues which I found very interesting.
Also like a lot of my other work I wanted to keep a lot of texture in the painting. I really like using that as a tool to balance the visual weight in the painting.
Thanks so much everyone for all the love and support so far. Steemit has a really awesome community and I appreciate all the kind words!