Ruff and Ready

My last effort to portray this species was, eh, crap! Too ambitious and nowhere  near convincing, so it was case of  'must do better'! I've tried to get back to keeping things simpler and this time I feel the bird does resemble the species it should be. Perhaps I'm being overly critical but thanks must go to Alan Harris -artist and illustrator extraordinaire - for his most helpful critique! A 3/4 image means I could avoid being over fussy with the intricate upperpart scalloping. If I'd have worked from a photo rather than sketches I could have also rendered the reflection and ripples much better but my 'jury' is still out on this one! That apart, this is at least getting near to the standard I would be satisfied with putting to my name to. I've also realized that copying a sketch is not as easy as one would think. I reckon this bird has a slightly under-sized head compared to the most successful sketch. Anyway, moving on....
Thanks for looking.
Russ

                                        Field sketches of juv. Ruff, Old Moor, 5th August, 2015