Altarpiece - Almost There

I thought I would put these up to show how the image is developing.  On Friday morning I worked on the image in acrylics.

Yesterday evening I added more German faces, knocked back some of the distant figures and darkened the left foreground.  I developed all the faces a little more and then tried re-adjusting the tones of the big areas to make the snaking composition a little more obvious.

Today The halos need re-gilding and tidying.  Then I will work on the sky in oils - it would be almost impossible to achieve the highly blended 'Raphael sky' in acrylics.  I wanted the shell bursts to look something like those stylised tree-tops you see in many Renaissance paintings.

I feel that the image has now gained in subtlety but at the expense of impact - in other words the usual dilemma applies!  I think it will work well on a larger scale but choice and placing of the transfer images will be crucial. I also have to make and gild a much bigger carcass.