Crime City Portraits WIP...

Hello! Here are some portraits. I'm trying to go towards a more painterly approach, but still retain some controlled and nearly graphic shapes (No airbrush!1). I'm trying out a "halfway to black" system to choose my values, as outlined by Scott Robertson in his rendering matte surfaces DVD:s. Essentially it's about first picking the average value for the light of a material/color, and then going halfway to black to locate the average value of that shadow. So for example, if the light value of a material is 50% bright, the shadow would be 25% bright. In doing this I kinda create a value gamut, so that I can get some control. Previously I've just winged my values, going for what looked right. Ambient occlusion can create darker values too. Still WIP!