A change in direction

For quite a while now I have been wanting to move my painting into a different direction, one that I loved as an art student; figure studies. I've had this one planned for quite a while now, and I finally got to start it recently.

I started by laying down the tonal values first and you can see the progress below.  It is quite challenging but it is slowly getting there. I will post more photos as I do some more work on it.