I was late out of bed this morning and it looked a bit too hot…
Privates Charles Godfrey And Frank Pike
Again only time for one portrait but today it’s a double. Godfrey was played by Arnold Ridley and Pike by Ian Lavender. Arnold and Ian were the oldest and youngest cast members and that, along with a decent source photo, was why I put the two of them together. Apparently Jones is supposed to be older than Godfrey but we’ll put that to one side: Clive Dunn was born in 1920 whereas Arnold Ridley (and John Laurie, who we’ll eventually get to) were both born in the 19th century, which is humbling to say the least.
I followed a similar approach to that for Lance Corporal Jones, working in three shades of bla k and then coming in with two flesh colours, but I used different flash colours for the two characters. I wanted Godfrey to look older, so his main flesh colour (almond) is lighter than Pike’s (putty). Both, though, also have ivory in the for lighter skin tones in places.
After all those colours were down, I compared the paintings to the rest of the collection. And it will come as no surprise to hear that this painting felt too similar to that of Jones, with a very similar colour scheme but lacking that zap of colour that was in Jones’ stripes. So I had to add some colour. The source photo had the two of them standing in front of a window in a wooden wall, which gave me the idea of giving the two characters different backgrounds in an attempt to draw attention to their age different. Godfrey, being in his twilight years, has a plain brown background (reminiscent of a coffin?) whereas Pike, having the world at his feet has more colours, brighter colours and a sunset with the promise of more adventures in the evening or the following day, while also going through his head as he wonders how many more sunsets Godfrey will see. Look, it’s in his eyes!
Overall, a decent effort but a step down from the last two. I can tell who these two are, even if the likenesses aren’t perfect. And the age difference, accentuated by the background, is that extra little bit of story that I need.
Three more portraits to go and I need to plan the colour schemes carefully. All three are already looking as if they’ll have a lot of blacks or dark greys in them but I need to think about what guest colours to include and whether one or more of the final three need coloured backgrounds to balance this one.
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