I’ve had computer issues this week, so blogging hasn’t been priority. Hopefully it’s working now long enough to get this all updated.
First, last Tuesday I had a photo shoot with a new model to me, Krystal, which went quite well. Before getting into all the new photos though, I had one concept designed and nearly ready, so I continued with it. This one doesn’t have a real story or character behind it like many of my more recent pieces, but rather just a cute pose and look. Once I had the outfit created and color choices made, I drew it on the illustration board…

model – Mac

Next, I masked it out and airbrushed the background with acrylics. I lightly covered the entire board with a soft pink, then added some red and magenta and covered the edge and added a soft design. The color looked a bit too bright/vibrant once dry, so I mixed some gray into the leftover mix and coated the whole board lightly to dim it down…

I then worked on all the paint work. The face and hair were done with gouache as usual, and I thought I might be able to hand paint the corset, since the design was in narrow strips. But of course the paint doesn’t adhere much at all to this board (I love the smoothness of these boards for their lack of added texture to the piece in the end, but it does pose many frustrating problems along the way), so after basically blocking it in I decided to finish it with the airbrush. I knew I would airbrush the stocking as well, so I painted their details in first, then masked out everything else and airbrushed those areas.
The skirt was also a bit of trouble to paint, but I decided not to airbrush it, at least not yet. I then painted the shoes, and finished by coating the skin areas with the textures gesso tinted with a bit of brown (it’s not pretty, but it gets the job done)…

Next step is blocking in the skin using colored pencils and oil pastels. I noticed afterward that the skin nearly matches the background now, so I will be working on adjusting the color and shading as I finish the piece…

That was a couple days ago, and I’ve been working on the details to complete it. I feel it is done now, and the last struggle was a title, but I now have that as well. I should have it scanned and available later today (assuming my computer cooperates).