Step 8 continued

Since this is the part most of you are looking for I am going to give a fairly detailed descriptio of what I am doing.

First off Master Chief's base color in this picture is 222222, the highlight color I am working with is 6C625E. When I first go in I think of a light source. 9 time out of 10 it's coming from the upper right hand side and slightly in front of whatever I am drawing. So this doesn't change. The first thing I do is find the edges of things, things that will be picking up the most light. The edges on the armor, the slight ridges on his stomach, the ridges on his shoulders. I highlight these with the color I had above with a smaller brush. After I have picked out the edges I go in with a larger version of the brush and start laying highlights to start creating the illusion of a 3d form.