Normally I would go through a ton of thumbnails and get props and everything to take reference pictures of myself, but I wanted this to be a quick painting I could finish in a few days. So I just posed my Master Chief figure with a flashlight for lighting and put together the collage. The sketch phase really helps with nailing down the armor early on so you take out all of the guess work. The longest part is definitely the rendering but by the time I start doing that I essentially have most of the work done already.