So MacPloos, you're putting the ruler to good use it appears. Nice stuff. But personally the story is with the lad and the subjects of the paintings telling their story.
Funny thing, when I was a student several decades back I would go to the museum quite a bit. I recall one time I got up this close to a huge Picasso checking out the canvas fabric and paint. And some goofball in the room having fun with his girlfriend came up and also stuck his face up to the painting. Was funny collecting around a very broad painting that needed the viewer to step back to appreciate it. I think the other chap was out to make his girl laugh. I was actually checking out the way the paint lay on the canvas. I suppose this is a contributing reason why I didn't have a girlfriend at the time. Caught red-handed looking at women, perhaps too close-up.
At the time I never imagined before the internet that some lad with white whiskers in Brighton 4 decades hence would would be painting me youthful self like a snapshot. Er, this is me in the painting, correct?
ˇVaya con close work!
"Not a bit is wasted and the best is yet to come. . ." -- remembered from a dream