Step 8

Still adding wrinkles, but correcting anatomy as I do so. I'm finding photos of sleeping rats online, and checking my own lazy rodents here as I go.

Step 9

Getting bored of wrinkles yet? I know I am.

Step 10

Wrinkles complete! Throw a winkle-completing party!

Step 11

I've provided a close-up here, since you can't see what I'm doing while zoomed out.
I'm using a medium sized, pressure-sensitive soft brush on a medium to low opacity to dot in different colours from my palette onto different parts of the body.
You can see that I've thrown some in around the eyes and nose, along his back/neck, and a few other places. I'm not keeping them uniform, because then they'll look like polka-dots.
For similar reasons, I'm using them sparingly across the body.

I'm using a mix of blues and peaches for it, and toning down any that stick out too much.
Don't smooth them out too much, though! If you take a good hard look at your own skin (and I mean REALLY close up), you're going to notice how blotchy and spotty you are in some places. Your skin isn't a flat surface (it's all hilly and criss-crossed), so it will reflect light slightly differently in different places depending on texture.
This step is a subtle step, and you don't see a huge difference, but I find if I skip it, I wind up with a much more plastic look than I'm wanting.

Step 12

Now I'm leaving my rat for a bit to work on the glass container my rat is going to be trapped in.
I've decided to go for a big, bell-jar type bottle, and have drawn in an outline of the shape of it. It doesn't have to be perfect, as it's just a guide - this outline will be deleted when I've painted it.

On to the next step!!

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