Grumpy Mark Twain progress photos

Today, I had my Illustration 5 final--only 1 more final to go, hooray! For the final, we had a "rush job", to kind of simulate a job that would have only about a 2 day turnaround, which happens sometimes in illustration. Yesterday we were emailed our "prompt" photos, one of which was this:

Hello, Mark Twain!
So for the assignment, we were supposed to use the prompt image but incorporate another object as well to show something about the person. So I looked at the photo and started brainstorming.
He looks kinda grumpy, I thought. Why is he grumpy?
Well, what makes me grumpy? When I'm trying to read and someone comes and TALKS to me, is what.
So I put together my reference photo.

It makes me laugh.

Then, painting. I took photos periodically throughout the process, just to see how it looked. Because sometimes when I'm almost done with a painting, I forget what it looked like before.

Many people seem to try to get a very accurate drawing before diving into paint. However, drawing is my weakness, while painting is my strength. So I tend to skim over my weak point to get to what I can actually do well.

Once I got the mustache in it started to actually kinda look like Mark Twain.

Finished! Then, I brought it into photoshop...

And there he is--grumpy Mark Twain!

And the actual painting part of it took about 3 hours--not bad!