I started with a charcoal sketch. I was concerned about positioning the
two heads for good composition, getting proportions right and making sure their positions appeared natural.

I started with Alexi. At this stage I
wanted to make sure I established a good likeness.

Next I started work on Andrew. The head placement seemed to be right. Andrew's eyes were lost in the shadows in the photo. I had to study other photos to get them right.

Now I wanted to establish the overall darks and lights, so I roughed in the background and hair. I was happy with the proportions, but there were small problems to solve to improve the likeness on both..

I refined the facial features and established skin tones and subtle characteristics. I wanted Andrew to have a slightly darker skin tone. Ideally, at this point it would have been beneficial to have a live sitting to acquire more information, but we didn't.

It was time to put the clothing in.
Striped shirts aren't exciting to
paint. I considered making their
clothes more impressionistic or
abstract, but I didn't feel like that would work.