New Mexican coin started

The Musico from Michoacán,
Mexico is a very unique country, the other day I picked up the local paper and found inspiration for this 100 peso coin. There was a story on the front page of a festival in Morelia, Michoacán; the feature photo was of a violin player. The news print is not clear in details but I liked the pose so much that I decided it was worth putting on a new coin.
I thought some of you would be interested in the work as it progresses. I am not going to waste my time to get a perfectly flat background so I have manipulated the excavated part to produce the effect of night, music, and moonlit mountains.
At this point I have the features of the man sketched out with a burin. I have not opened his eyes yet as I may want to keep them that way. What I have now is a sturdy adult, what I want to end up with is this old man. As you can see I have a mile to go and I am still in the dark.
An interesting side note, on the back page of that same paper were color photos of four decapitated bodies, next to them, the faceless heads that were recovered from a plastic drum acid bath. I do miss the security of a handgun by my bedside.
Have a great day

Magnifico!!!! Dont stop now! Thanks so much for all you give so freely.Not much chance to see hammer/push work.God Bless ,mike

nice start, but I notice the violin isn't tuned yet. :big grin:

arnaud

Looks good. I'm interested to see how you are going to make him look older. Maybe a wrinkle or two?

Thanks for sharing Joseph!

Part of what I love about you really experienced guys posting is the little thing here and there you casually mention that would have taken us new guys years to think of.

In this case, finding a way to not smooth the background area, thereby getting a better coin with less work.

What I have done is to first texture the face and sombrero shadows with a small punch with 600 grit paper glued to its face, as this is much faster than dot by dot. I can get away with this because the figure is Hispanic and has a dark complexion. Some progress photos.I wont be working on this for a while,Happy Holidays

exelent pics, i love mexican Hat (sombrero)

still in the dark

But there is light at the end of the tunnel.
In these pix you can see where I am using sand paper superglued to a small punch darken the jacket and other areas.It aint exactly bulino but it's a heck of a lot faster than burin dots and I dont want to waste my time.
I'll post the final coin when I figure out the violin's strings.
Thanks for the nice comments,and have a great New Year.