The Frazetta Girl - observations on

As the fantasy art world mourns the passing of Frank Frazetta, Babe Lab felt it appropriate to give a reverent nod to The Frazetta Girl.  A complete analysis of his works and techniques could take forever;  he was, after all, a master of many subjects, his marvelous maidens being just one.

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It's clear that Frazetta made up his mind about what he found attractive in women, and didn't bother straying much from this ideal.  He drew what thrilled him.

Physical observations :
-convincing voluptuous fat distribution -- most seen in legs, buttocks, belly, breasts and cheeks
-button nose
-full lips
-long eyelashes
-directional/windswept hair
-pale breasts -- don't see the sun as much
-breasts, in true-to-life fashion, lie on/overhang ribcage -- their shapes stretch, compact, flatten and are otherwise influenced by motion and gravity
-high hip, low hip
-high shoulder, low shoulder
-bent wrists

Technical observations :
-Frazetta wasn't afraid to obscure, either via overlap or shadows.   By remaining suggestive rather than literal, his viewers' imaginations are allowed to take over.  What's lost is subconsciously filled in.
-Frazetta used external elements to frame his girls : tree branches, animals, architecture, shadows, the moon, etc.
-He put heaviest contrast on spots his target audience was likely to be looking (face, breasts, buttocks).
-His volumetric shadow shapes created a design within a design.  Light bounced up into them further emphasized roundness of form.
-When his paint strokes weren't following the curvature of the forms, they were going with the grain of the action.
-His skin tones were, like many other aspects of his paintings, color-rich.
-More slavish detail was given to the focal areas, and was considerably less dense in areas further away.
-His sense of tactility (forms at rest, pressed up against external objects, pressed up against themselves, etc.) contributed to a sense of realism, even with such improbable, heroic subject matter.