This is a beautiful, expressive hand-sculpted bust full of that raw analog charm, and as such I thought it would be perfect to complement it with a painterly style, subdued palette and a of course a heavy dose of textures to accentuate the dark, gothic feel of decaying elegance that this sculpt evokes.
I'm pretty sure the sculpt was inspired by that one portrait of Beethoven that everyone has seen but doesn't remember who painted it, so I further looked for inspiration there and borrowed the white shirt, red neckerchief and the way I painted the hair.
Hope you enjoy, as it was a blast to paint.