B/G for sure. Personally, I’m not feeling Dmitry’s color work when it comes to skin tones (though loving his color work on other things, like the red and yellow leaves). They do have different signature styles, but they all display an extremely good command of shadowing and realism in general. They also all have displayed previous work that have me convinced that I would be happy with either one of them, though as I said, I favor Torres for this piece. Hernandez is best known for his dark horror stylistic freehand style, but he does other stuff as well and I have spoken to him and know he is a big Caravaggio fan (as is Torres, I have spoken to him earlier as well). It is easier to get appts with Torres when he is doing conventions (which I know as I had a spot offered on fairly short notice – sadly couldn’t take it), though I have no problem waiting a year or two. I also have no issue with traveling – for my first one, I flew to Russia (to Den Yakovlev).

Hernandez is best known for his B/G work, but IMO he is AMAZING with color. I agree that the three artists I mentioned are different (Torres=pencil texture, Hernandez=smooth spraypaintish, Samohin=watercolor feel), but to say that they they have totally different styles… meh…

For those of you who are not familiar wtih the artists:

Carlos Torres:

Robert Hernandez:

Dmitry Samohin:

And it is only fair to include some signature pieces:

Carlos Torres:

Robert Hernandez:

Dmitry Samohin:

Thanks Buttwheat, like I said I am ONLY getting the angel. I’m not looking to get my chest done at this point (I’m a girl so there are “obstacles” ;-)).

I’ll edit the first picture to exclude what I don’t want.

Thanks! It was only a 2 1/2 hr flight – I’d gladly travel further!

Linda