I love this, its so well done

thanks dave and lynn :) the reference has a sharp focus on the eye area and the right neck feathers, but blurred on all the rest .. just gotta try to make that happen without making it sloppy looking.

Great looking draw!!

The eyes on your paintings are always so expressive.

What an awesome looking hawk face.....I really like this....:)

bette, this is really, really good! The depth in his eye is fab along with the 'in and out of' focus effects..wonderful!

hehe, i was just laying back on my chair and from that distance the depth of field and the highlights on the eye were just awesome :D
but then i leaned forward to reach my keyboard, to comment you haw super awesome you are, and i noticed the sharp edges of the blur brush on the feathery bit that is out of focus. you should have used a lower opacity for the blur around the edges or maybe you could have blended the two areas by painting some of the feathers with the airbrush tool instead... also i think the eye would look better if you blurred the the sharp portions of the highlights just a tiny bit.

I dont know why your'e all wanking over this i think it's pretty average so far.

Oh hush up....
I think it's quite lovely bette...

I'm trying to give her encouragment for a good finish.

Ok stinker...;)

lovin the eye on this

thanks so much everyone! :)
and mursku, after you pointed it out, I can see how that sudden contrast from blurred to sharp doesn't look right .. I'll have to deviate from the reference a bit and try to fix that.. thanks for the tips .. much appreciated :) now let's hope I can pull it off without guidance from the ref and make it look better.
flubbles, you're just hardcore :P but I'm glad to know you were only trying to "encourage me" next time maybe give me some tips where I went wrong, like mursku did :)

brilliant