Babe Lab is going to assume that if you're in the business of pinup art and/or erotica, you've probably had some exposure to porn and use it as reference in drawing the female body. You should only feel ashamed of this if you're stealing the material outright, but even if just using it to study, there are a few things to beware of.
Babe Lab Disclaimer : Non-proprietary photos and illustrations featured on Babe Lab appear for the sole purpose of review.
The above frame was taken from a Jay Sin movie. The first assumption is "Hey, there's millons of frames to pause at, so if I simply choose the 'right' one, I'll be able to trace the outlines and make a perfect picture." Wrong!
Even if you follow all the contours and find all the major overlaps (this can be a fun exercise), you may still encounter tangencies that will wreck your depth illusion. The frame itself might only feature a "tween" action which doesn't convey a clear message. The figure(s) in it may be poorly cropped. You may also be stuck with uninteresting negative shapes, straight-on camera angles lacking in depth, lens distortion, poor lighting and worse composition. Further, there may be desirable anatomy that gets washed out or obscured (play up!), as well as undesirable anatomy that's too apparent (play down!).
It's worth your while to determine what's happening in the scene, then re-interpret the elements to best suit that action. You may even need to mentally rotate around the figure(s) to get a better angle. Recompose! Learn from your real-life subject and note down things that seem significant! Don't be a dirty tracer!
