Just Another Pretty Face

[rowyn]

A couple of weeks ago, I bought Let Them Eat Cheesecake, the aptly-named collection of Olivia paintings.

This put me in a mind to paint a cheesecake picture, which is ironic given that I don't like cheesecake all that much. Well, I do enjoy looking at scantily-clad women in wildly improbable poses. But not enough to hang them up in my living room, or to look at the same one for hours on end. And if I'm going to put all the time in to do a painting, I sort of have to stare at it for hours on end while I'm doing it.

I have this love/hate relationship with the whole idea of pinups. On the one hand, they're fun. They're fun to draw and they're fun to look at. On the other ... man, everyone does them. What do I need to paint pinups for? There are eighty bazillion of them out there already. Does the world really need one more cute naked chick?

Anyway, I wound up doing a portrait of a fully-clad woman. The face was based off of Olivia's "Whiplash", though the final result scarcely even bears a passing resemblance.



I like the way the hair turned out best. It's not perfect. But the color is right. I could do better with the waves and the positioning the next time.

Comments

Oh, *that's* what's wrong with the face

[rowyn]

I kept thinking the nose had come out too wide -- but it's not so much the nose as that there's too much space between the eyes. Whoops.

I like your story idea! That has a lot of potential. Since you're not working on the Zippo story anymore (well, that I know of) maybe you could do that instead? *perks hopefully* :)

Re: Oh, *that's* what's wrong with the face

[the-vulture.livejournal.com]

Actually, the face isn't too wide; the eyes are too big. You should be able to fit roughly four and a half eye widths across the face. The eyes should be placed one eye width apart (which you've done). If you drop a vertical line from the pupils, they should touch the corners of a relaxed mouth (on a full frontal view). The rest of the facial proportions seem pretty close, though. If you want, the next you're up in my neck of the woods, I can show you a few pointers on drawing faces. It's the least I can do for you after you taught me how to braid my hair.

As for Olivia, I prefer her Heavy Metal Magazine covers, though the 'Let Them Eat Cheesecake' book was pleasant to browse.