Information on this work should have been forthcoming some time ago as this piece is nearly halfway to completion. I had in mind a portrait of a tiger that would be very confrontational and predatory, with raking light and strong chiaroscuro. Wildlife art is flush with romantic portrayals of apex predators and I wanted something a little more sinister. This is ambitious for me as I don’t have any images in my reference collection that would fit that description. This composition is largely a conglomerate of at least a half dozen images; none of which featured precisely the type of lighting I was seeking; zoos tend not to be good locations for dramatic lighting. From studying multiple images, I hope to accurately model the bone structure of this animal so the shadows falling across it’s face will be convincing. The side to the viewer’s right should be lost in shadow compared to the lit half on the left.
Again, this is a scratchboard, 14X11. Unfortunately I can’t positively I.D. the subspecies since I’ve sampled from multiple images, but it closely resembles a Bengal. Click on the image for viewing at a higher resolution.
amystauffer.com 
Hauntingly beautiful.