Ryu from Street Fighter. Painting stages.

Skin tones are always challenging to me. They can differ from greens to reds, even purples. This time I painted a video game figure, it had to be in vibrant colors to resemble the video game graphics. I don't like to paint saturated colours very much but on this one I had to.
First I 3D printed this awesome model from U3D. Really detailed one. And here you see it on the painted base, with the light sketches before painting.

I aimed a warm and rich skin tone. And placed the shadows with brush;

Mid tones were very important to give that vibrant feeling. I kept that warm and bright, here they are;

Then applied the highlights by valuing up the midtone, again with brush;

At this stage it is always surprising for me that when I share these photos at this stage people always think that it is complete and it looks wonderful. I think this is because when you place the shadows and lights correctly and naturally, the brain gets the complete message, the complete definiton and understands it as a "proper body". This is what I have found out in my mind.

Now comes the most difficult and funniest part, blending with airbrush;

After blending, it really looks like a finished work. But I had to increase the highlights even more to give that striking feel, with very detailed brushwork. Here are the final looks of the skin;

as the final steps I painted the cloth parts and painted some OSL on the Hadouken;

And finally it was ready. Here are photos of the finished piece;

The photos looked like in-game footage, right out of the video game itself :D
What do you think?