In nearly 70 years, the only thing I have ever painted is the house; so I took a deep breath and challenged myself to move on from BRL scripts, water reflection scripts et al.

So here is my version of a Japanese David Bowie ...



... now that didn't hurt at all; my son did a contemporary art degree and I know there are some rough bits but I do not think he would complain.

Just love GIMP!

I haven't got words to say how you always surprise me. I know you are a very creative artist
Please, go on as you are so versatile a creator of fantastic outcomes. Thank you so much OMG.

Nice work oldmangrumpy.

Thank you Issabella (again!) and Erisian (go Sweden!).

Its strange in some way, my 1 year old grandaughter and me both having so much fun with our toys!!

Nice job, OMG. You're a man of many talents.

Nice job . I love your painting

I love it. I particularly love his hair!

very good, and anime is not that easy to do!

to GnuTux, CT-Gimper101, PhotoMaster, Wallace and 2-ton.

I am absolutely overwhelmed by your kind comments; but I think I certainly need to ramp up the learning curve on these 'brush' things!

you are a very creative Gimper, so THIS is definitely your area of application: CREATE!
time for playing with scripts is finished, just apply all what you learned in doing your ART!
a warm welcome to a new (for us) GIMP ARTIST!!!

@oldmangrumpy

A most creative study! I like his wink and the multi-colored tie. One can tell you are experimenting with varying filters as part of the work - this makes for an interesting pop-culture type of style. What works best here, in my opinion, is the bright highlight on his shoulder, this gives a feeling of depth to this manga-esque style which can often be perceived as rather flat otherwise.

A good start and I always find it commendable to move away from your normal "comfort zone" of artwork.
.
Griatch

WOW - thank you Dinasset and thank you Griatch!

I have had another go; stumbling somewhat towards a result - inspired by an old favourite, Van Morrison and his Brown Eyed Girl ...



Eyes are very difficult and I think I also made an error by starting small, should probably go big then scale down; still its all a learning process so that's for next time.

EDIT - as sugested by Dinasset (post below), I have made some changes as suggested - now my learning curve has gone vertical (again).

Thanks for your support Dinasset.

I don't know the character (the "Brown Eyed Girl"), but IMO you just need to complete it with some shading (not only on the eyes, but mainly there)

@Dinasset - two things:

1. Brown Eyed Girl recorded by Van Morrison shortly after the break up of his band 'Them' in 1966
2. I am really struggling on technique for this (very late in life) move into art as you suggested above; so I've just made a list of some 20 GIMP based tutorials on aspects of portrait painting. One of them featured Griatch too. I'll be back in a couple of months!