Babe Lab : Pinup Research & Development

Foot Check / Stiletto Thumb

2012-02-05T20:26:00.000-08:00

Drawing a stilettoed foot is hard, but drawing a checkmark (✓) is easy!

If we extrude a 2D checkmark into 3D space, we get two planes : a long one and a short one, each pointing in a different direction. Practice drawing this 3D checkmark from above, below, in front, behind and everywhere in between.

After you've gotten comfy with this, begin to think of the long plane of the checkmark as the arch of the foot, and the small plane of the checkmark as the toe of the foot. Plant a cone behind the toe for the stiletto heel, running up to the top of the arch. Whether drawing high-heeled feet from your imagination or from a model, this primitive construction tool will help you flesh them out.

Observational note : The thumb of a weight-bearing hand is not unlike an offset stiletto heel. This is another place where we can employ the "foot check."

Bonus nugget : While we're on the topic of planes, notice how fingers A, B, and C [above] are the same shape. If we shove the fingernail to the top (as in A) the finger looks like it's tilted away from us. If we shove the fingernail to the bottom (as in C) the finger looks like it's tilted towards us. Fingernails and toenails are basically tiny, slightly curved planes. Use them!

Spotlight on Otto Schmidt

2012-01-29T09:48:00.000-08:00

Moscow-based Otto Schmidt's art is shockingly direct, viscerally graphic and unabashedly sexual. Sift through the many layers and you'll find generous doses of cuteness and humor as well. Babe Lab was able to pull Otto away from his workstation long enough to ask him a few questions.

Babe Lab : "Schmidt" is a German name meaning "someone who makes things." "Otto" is likewise German. How did your family come to live in Russia? Or did you just make the name up to sound cool?

Otto Schmidt : I agree it sounds cool. But, from the other side, I never had a choice because my family has German ancestors who moved to Russia in Reformation times. They were Lutherans, which made their lives tough, and there were also a lot of military riots and conflicts between Germany's principalities. That’s why my ancestors decided to move to Russia. There they were given land on the Volga River area. In that hard time, a lot of people immigrated to Russia from Europe. Since then, they all lived together in a German enclave on Russian territory before World War II.

As for my nickname, well, there is no special intrigue. There was a hero, scientist and polar explorer Otto Yulyevich Schmidt in Soviet Russia. "Schmidt" is actually my last name, and my middle name is Yurievich, which sounds close to Yulyevich, so people were just confused and ignored my real name, Evgeny. They kept asking me, ”Are you a relative of Otto Yulyevich Schmidt?” That's how I became Otto Yulyevich over time, or just Otto.

Later in my adult life it was funny to watch the reactions of people who found out that “Otto” is my nickname and “Schmidt” is my real last name, because everyone who didn't know me since childhood usually thought the opposite : that “Otto” was a real name and “Schmidt” was a nickname. These days people might call me Otto, or by my real name. I’m fine with both, but for an artistic nickname, "Otto" definitely sounds more interesting than "Evgeny." :)

BL : Russians and their complicated names! So...level with me here...do all women in Russia look like your drawings?

OS : Yes, every one. But I’m not sure all of them are Russian ;)

BL : How did you get your start in cartoon illustration/animation, and what are some of the clients you've worked for?

OS : I started working as an illustrator relatively recently, about 7-8 years ago. Before that, I worked as an art director for Networks RA, as a concept character artist for the video game industry, and also as a animator for a TV studio. I moved to the illustration field and left my career in advertising, and I don't regret this decision.

Before that, I worked for brands like Toyota, Motorola, FHM, Unilever, KraftFoods, Schwarskopf, Gillette, Tuborg, FinnFlare... and a lot of others brands only Russians would know about. Illustration became my outlet for creativity and horrific experiments in poor and illogical ideas. I have an Italian agent, TomatoFarm. There were a few book covers as well. In the past, and these days, I have a few projects for European and American comic book covers.

BL : You're as bold in your application of color and light as you are with your lines. How long do you spend on a typical piece, like "MaBaker?" [above]

OS : It’s a very popular question about how much time I spend on this or that piece, and it's a hard one to answer. Sometime it’s 2 hours, sometimes it’s 2 weeks and, at the end of both periods, the two pieces might have no visual difference between each other in their amount of detail or how complicated their compositions are.

As for "MaBaker", it’s a very old art work. I mean, the sketches, characters' variants, pencil drawing, colors, composition variants -- all these I did 3 years ago. I did this art to 70-80% and right after that, I just stopped. I didn't like this picture anymore, and couldn't see how to finish it. I started to feel like I “tortured” this painting, which is the worst scenario. I put it under the table to let it rest for some time. I could afford to, because this picture was supposed to be for my personal project, "Mikka", and I didn't have a deadline. I switched to different work and, not long ago, while I sorted some of my art for prints my agent asked me for, I found her. Even though I had trouble scheduling my main work project, I just sat and repainted everything for 2 hours, and that’s it -- the lady was done. However, as it turned out, I needed to fix the text since English isn't my strongest point.

To sum up, I spent 2 hours or 3 years on "MaBaker." But usually, for this type of job, I spend 4-5 hours.

BL : Photoshop, Sketch Book Express and Painter -- What are the advantages of each, as they pertain to your workflow? Do you use any other programs?

OS : Photoshop. Its main advantage is its universality. Latest versions give the artist a terrific set of opportunities for self-expression. But some people have the opposite opinion : that this wide variety of tools is too much and makes artists lazy when it comes to studying the fundamental basis of drawing, color and light. I agree that version 5.5 was the apogee of appetite for a system and its capability as a program. As for me, I think ctrl+z is the main evil.

SketchBook Express is a different type of program. Even though I didn't work with it for long, I found it more convenient for tablets with touch screens, ModBooks for instance. This is a small program adapted for small displays, with a layer system interface. But, compared to Photoshop, I would use SketchBook for sketching and storyboards.

Painter...I’m done with Painter after version 7. It was a very resource-wasting program. That's why, when I was still new to CG painting, I didn't feel the need for a real painting imitation. In those days, I also was doing video composing and art direction, so painting was only a hobby for rare personal free time.

I also use CorelDRAW for vector graphics. Sometimes I need this program for logo creations, along with AdobeStreamline, just out of habit :)

BL : This Alenkiy Tsvetochek PSD [above] is meticulously organized -- different parts on different layers. Is this so that the elements can be level adjusted, or moved around within the composition?

OS : Layers and layer group organisation helps me a lot to not get lost in my own work, and keeps track of my timeline if I have more than 5-6 layers. For long-term painting it helps a lot as well. All elements can be easily moved or transformed. As for “Alyonushka”, well, there was originally an absolutely different composition and it had been transformed many times. Its center and horizon had been changed many times, but with this workflow I figured out the perfect solution.

BL : You use a variety of tools. Modbooks, ipads, cintiqs, tablets, pencils, watercolor, just to name a few. Which feels the best to you?

OS : I don’t use an iPad simply because I don't have one. I had a chance once to try an iPad for painting, but I wasn't impressed. It felt wrong after using a ModBook. I totally understand that this device wasn't originally intended for artists; it's just not my thing.

Cintiqs are a very interesting variant, but they're kinda too pricey. I like the idea, but I can’t see how I'd fix a display that was worn out after repeated use. Buying a new Cintiq isn't an option. I haven't decided for myself yet.

Recently I’m working on an Intous 3 (a4 at the office or at home, and a5 for travelling). Intous 4 slightly disappointed me, probably because I've never used the tablet’s buttons. Keyboard buttons were always enough for me. I was waiting for Wacom to make a tablet with more pressure sensitivity and dpi resolution, but instead, we got a shrunken workspace and an even more shitty, brand-name surface sheet. I really miss Intous # A5's width. That was an ideal tablet for work, home and travelling.

I love pencils. I’ve drawn with pencils since childhood, because I could control the drawing process. Paint was too messy for me and only disturbed my creative process. I started to love painting when I was a student and had an oil painting course at my university. It was a slow process, but I figured out how to mix paints and how to work with colors. Watercolor has always been hard to reach, so I just admire other artists who can work with this material.

BL : Your women are skinny, but not skeletal. What are some Otto Schmidt Rules of Thumb when drawing pretty ladies?

OS : The secret here isn't thinness, but elegance. Even the skeleton has some elegance :) I wouldn't call it a set of rules or secret bible. It's all on the surface : not-too-wide bones, narrow joints, tiny details and a true love of the female body :)

Yes, my bodies aren't perfect, but I’m not a photographer. Yes, I always idealize and present an unreal archetype. But this is my show and my rules :) At the same time, I’m against putting "ideal" on some production line. My life in the USSR has trained me to run to the identical clones crowd, to sameness.

I’m absolutely fine with natural beauty and silicone beauty. Holy wars on this theme always make me laugh. The secret of drawing a pretty girl is in her own prettiness. If you like her, you will always forgive her if she's overweight or too skinny. At least for drawn girls; in real life it's not so simple.

BL : Your girls' hands are phenomenal! Is there a secret to this? Lifedrawing, reference or good old fashioned know-how?

OS : Phenomenal? Thank you :) I wouldn't say so. Actually, hands are one of the most complicated things to draw. I very often re-draw them and tweak composition, position and motion. Figures and faces might never get changed at all, but hands always do. The best reference is lifedrawing of course. But, if it’s not possible, I just draw my own beauties and change them as needed.

BL : What's the worst piece of art advice you were ever given?

OS : Hmm..worst? “Something's wrong with your anatomy here.” I’m not a saint, and I’m not a realistic classic artist either. Even with all my desire to make a perfect picture, I try to avoid maniacal depressions about quality. Perfectionism is very egotistical, and at secondly, the ego is an artist itself. And it often happens that perfectionism, like a parasite, kills its carrier.

BL : Profound! Thanks so much for talking with us, Otto.

OS : Nazdorovie!

You can follow Otto's prolific output by visiting the following links.
http://schmidteugenart.blogspot.com/
http://daskunst.livejournal.com/
http://otto-von-todd.livejournal.com/

Special thanks to Tamara Bakhlycheva for her help in translating this interview.

Face Filtration - A Study Companion

2012-01-20T18:32:00.000-08:00

The following method of photo study comes from fast-tracked concept artist Anthony Jones, who once said something along the lines of...

"Humans, by default, can only see a certain way. But what if we were like The Predator, and our eyes took in information differently? That's what Photoshop gives you : a second sight."

Here we've run a variety of filters on some faces.

CUTOUT : reduces to simple pattern with minimal color (useful for simplifying values)
PHOTOCOPY : gives "coloring book" edges, eliminates interior noise
THRESHOLD : reduces to on/off pattern, loses edges, consolidates darks (useful in figuring out graphic stamp)
HIGH PASS : shows where the brightest parts of the image are (useful in figuring out highlight options)
MEDIAN : eliminates noise, brings down detail, simplifies colors
MAXIMUM : generates high-key palette
MINIMUM : generates low-key palette
MOSAIC : generates simple palette
POSTERIZE : reduces to simple pattern with minimal color (useful for simplifying values)
CONTOUR : shows edges (useful for seeing shadows)

The next time you do a study from a photo, see if one or several of these filters helps you in your analysis...and try out a few others while you're at it!

Babe Lab Disclaimer : Non-proprietary photos and illustrations featured on Babe Lab appear for the sole purpose of review.

Sensitivity Training -- LIVE WORKSHOP

2012-01-10T18:26:00.000-08:00

"Babe Lab : Sensitivity Training"

Sensitivity in art is vital, especially when women are involved. Join concept artist / pinup enthusiast Paul Richards and veteran model Stacy E. Walker as they guide you through the do's and don'ts of portraying the female form.

Where

January 26th, 7PM-11PM
Gnomon School of Visual Effects
1015 N. Cahuenga Blvd. Hollywood, CA 90038

Schedule

Thursday, Jan. 26th
7:00 p.m. - 7:15 p.m.: meet-and-greet with Paul and Stacy
7:15 p.m. - 9:45 p.m.: Sensitivity Training (lecture)
9:45 - 11:00 p.m.: lifedrawing session

Stacy E. Walker is a professional figure model providing inspiration and visual reference for world renowned illustrators, major animation studios, video game developers, fine artists, sculptors and a variety of academic institutions.

Babe Lab : Hi Stacy! Thanks for descending the model stand to chat with us. Watch your step!

Stacy E. Walker : It's my pleasure. I'm thrilled that you asked. I'm a huge fan of the blog so I'm honored to be introduced to all your followers.

BL : Well, we're honored to have you as our first model! So what was the turning point in your life when you decided to start doing this? Something or someone must have emboldened you.

SW : I grew up wanting to be Batgirl or a professional dancer. I began studying ballet, jazz and tap at the age 5 and was dancing professionally in stage productions in NYC by the time I was 10. As I began to mature, I was getting more curvy than tall and was constantly being told I was not thin enough, not tall enough and too "ethnic." Sometimes I wouldn't even get the chance to audition. They would just look at you and send you away. It got very difficult to handle so I started looking for other things I could do. I always loved comics and fantasy art but had no idea how to get involved with the field until I saw an article in a magazine about Fabio. The rest is history, as they say, and my strong background in dance really enhances my modeling work.

BL : Wait, Fabio...the guy who did all those romance novel covers?

SW : Yes, [the article] showed you how he and a female model would pose for a photographer who would then supply the images to an illustrator. So when I saw they do actually use real models for this I began to seek out artists who needed models for their work.

BL : When a person draws you, they get the privilege of being before the nude, and a few pieces of artwork under their belt. What do you get out of it?

SW : I love to see all the different variations and styles the artists portray me in, but most of all to help inspire their creativity and tell their story. It's always amazing for me to see myself as some of the most amazing characters this genre has to offer, especially when I inspire an original character.

BL : Describe the arc you've made in your modeling career. What are you doing now that you weren't doing when you began? What might you do differently in the future?

SW : I spent the first half of my career working primarily for illustrators who work from photos. Some would shoot the photos themselves and others had photographers who would do it for them. We would get the art brief ahead of time so we could show up with hair and makeup done and any accessories we could bring to add to the character. You had to be able to walk in and give them exactly what they needed. I treated them all as small acting roles. As time went on, many of the artists trusted me to deliver the photos because they knew I had a ton of costumes and props and really embodied the characters I was given to portray. They would send thumbnails or sketches and I would shoot the reference for them. I view myself more as a collaborator and not just the model. My image has been featured on countless book covers, calendars, trading cards, magazine covers, t- shirts, statues, comics, posters, etc.

BL : That's got to be surreal. What's the most random place you've seen yourself?

SW : One time I was walking with friends in a mall and there was a store that did airbrush work on shirts and jackets and there I was on the back of this jacket right in the front window. They had copied an image that Boris Vallejo had done of me in a calendar. They had zoomed in and it was 4 times the size of the calendar image. It was surreal and exciting at the same time. Yes, I went right in and bought it and I still wear it to this day. After that it started to happen quite frequently. You see someone in one of your t-shirts walking around. I get photos emailed to me saying "I used this image for a tattoo and just realized it was based on a real person." I enjoy their excitement when they discover that girl in the image is real and not just made up by the artist. There have been gas tanks on motor cycles, hoods of cars, you name it.

BL : So getting back to your career arc... Kinda derailed you there...

SW : Now I am primarily providing live visual reference from series of gestures to the long poses nude and in costume. My style and knowledge of the industry is ideal for animation and gaming studios and the field is booming at the moment. For the immediate future I want to get more into performance capture work. It allows me to take my work to the next level and I love it. I really want to work with Blur Studios so I hope to make that happen really soon. I still have not given up on a part in a big screen film and it is my dream to work with Peter Jackson and Zack Snyder. I am also outlining ideas to run my own specialty workshops as well as digital reference for downloading. At some point I may cross over to a full time position working with artists in one of the studios or gaming companies as I also represent a group of artists through my production company that I book for jobs via freelance work hire assignments.

BL : Do you get a chance to observe or speak with others in the field? What sets you apart in your approach or presentation?

SW : Yes I do. There is also much you can learn from seeing them in the artists work. What sets me apart is my extensive background in dance and working as a professional art model as well as my thorough knowledge of the genre and art in general. I know how important the figure model is to the creative process and the need to help tell the artist's story. I always bring my own music to establish a mood. I always push to bring a dynamic quality to my work even if it is a more sensitive moment. With each pose I am telling a story from the look in my eye to the unique ways I use my hands. I put my entire body into each pose and will push the hip and shoulder to the extreme. Dance taught me to always lift from the ribcage and I use my torso well. I am a story teller with my work. Sometimes making my own movie in my head or my own graphic novel panel by panel. I always have fun props like a variety of swords and guns so I don’t have to use the boring pole or broom handle. I also have my own methods of using a variety of rubber balls and chords. I want to leave a room knowing I have inspired the group whether they are students or professionals. I consistently hear that I am so fun to draw and working with me was very inspiring and that is greatest compliment I could ask for.

BL : What, if any, are your expectations from the people drawing/painting you?

SW : I hope that they will not sneak photos of me and post them on Facebook or other social networks or blogs. I had an issue last year and it was not cool at all. I don’t have real expectations. I love to see what they are doing and hope when I ask if I can photograph some of the work for my archives and my new website they will let me. It's always an honor to receive actual credit on something because it really makes you feel as if you added to the success of the piece or the project. But, as I understand, it's not always possible to give a printed credit. I really love to see when an artist uses me in their work and to be able to add it to my body of work so I wish they would let me know. There are so many times when I see an image and it's so obvious that it's me. I know the photo they may have used off my site, or I know my poses, or my cleavage and I can really tell when someone took something we did in life class and elaborated on it into a beautiful color illustration. It feels awkward to contact them to verify and it's very frustrating when they admit it's me. It doesn't take anything away from their creation to say it's based on my image. People do it all the time and it hurts me not to be able to post it loud and proud. I don’t know if they think I'll ask for money, but that's not the case at all. It happened several times just in the last few months and I'm still working on getting confirmation. There's always the hope in my heart that I'll inspire one of the studios I work with to create a character based on me that would appear in a game or movie. One that I could voice and do the actual performance capture as well. That would be the ultimate dream goal for me.

BL : Greatest pride moment?

SW : The first illustration that Boris Vallejo did of me. Working with him I learned so much and it awoke something in me I never knew was there. I was very lucky to begin working with him early in my career and I will be forever grateful for the time I had working with him. It was also have to be the first illustration that Alex Horley did of me. It really seemed to capture me more than many of the others and has become my signature piece. “Red Stacy” has been a limited edition lithograph, quilt, t-shirt and a statue.

BL : Greatest moment of embarrassment and/or frustration?

SW : This is my favorite story. I was appearing as a guest at the Motor City Comic Con and when I first starting the Con circuit I always tried to really look the part so I would wear a lot of latex. On Friday nights the cons go late so we usually get really hungry. One of my fans was a chef so he brought my friend and I some of the food from his Italian restaurant. I have always tried to eat very healthy so I don’t use much oil or salt etc. Needless to say the chicken parm did not agree with me and I became quite gassy while wearing a pair of latex leggings that I soon realized were blowing up like a balloon from all the gas. It kept going down one leg so I tried to shift it over so it would down the other because I was afraid to try and push the bubble out. I was laughing so hard I almost passed out! Embarrassing as it is, it happens to all of us and it is such a great story it has to be shared.

BL : Wow, that's....uh...well, let that be a lesson to all you latex wearers out there! Thanks for baring all, Stacy. Figuratively and literally.

You can catch Miss. Walker in her element at a studio space near you (provided you live in Southern California) or in the following app : Posebook by Stephen Silver – A Fundamental Guide For Artistic Development for iPad, IPhone and android. An updated version of her website will be launching in the next couple of months with a ton of new features and content, so please check back.

A Look At Negatives - Legs

2011-12-07T15:01:00.000-08:00

Stare long and hard at this symmetrical 5 dot configuration. There's a little dot on the top and the bottom, two longer, stretched out dots and a medium sized dot in the middle.

Setting aside all knowledge of anatomy, it's a quick way to remember the interior shape of the legs as seen directly from the front or back. Notice that, from these views, the interior contour or the leg is lumpier than the exterior contour.

This "5 dot" configuration only works when the heel is elevated.
(1) the space near the crotch
(2) the space between the thighs
(3) the space between/below the knees
(4) the space between the calves
(5) the space between the toes

Babe Lab Disclaimer : Non-proprietary photos and illustrations featured on Babe Lab appear for the sole purpose of review.

Angry Angry Ankles

2011-11-21T14:56:00.000-08:00

Here's a simple device for recalling the high/low relationship between calves and ankles : the angry face! Whether viewing the legs from the front or from behind, just remember this sour little guy.

Be sure to invert this when the legs are crossed!

Babe Lab Disclaimer : Non-proprietary photos and illustrations featured on Babe Lab appear for the sole purpose of review.

Feature Creep : Constraining The Face

2011-11-08T17:33:00.000-08:00

In software development, "feature creep" refers to the overly ambitious bloating of a project's scope. When drawing the face of a pretty girl, a different kind of feature creep occurs, with eyes, noses and lips literally creeping across the curvature of the head, beyond where they ought to be.

Some of this can be stylistic choice, but we must remember that the head, despite being a modified sphere, still has a front, sides, a top and bottom. One way we can keep ourselves in check is by constraining the face early on, by way of defining the area (really a series of planes) in which we draw its features. The shape of the area, if we think of it one dimensionally, resembles a shield, or modified Superman symbol. Eyebrows at the top, lower lip at the base, with the nose somewhere just below the midpoint.

Observe how much real estate this facial bounding area takes up on actual faces, represented here in green. Look how much surface area of the head is left over on all sides.

Sticklers for proper proportion will scoff at such shorthand, but the goal here is to remain conscious of the curvature of the head, and to more accurately map the features onto it. Experiment with modifying this bounding area to create an array of different facial shapes and expressions. It should be a helpful constraint, not a hindering one!

Because facial features are the really fun stuff to draw on a head, we tend to subconsciously enlarge them. We do this to the entire head, too, essentially giving us more area to play in. But, like little children running amok, it's probably best if we play in the yard.

Crossed Wires

2011-11-07T18:58:00.000-08:00

Here's a shorthand proportional tool you may find handy when drawing a girl (or any figure) in deep perspective.

Imagine two wooden crosshairs joined by a flexible wire with a piece of tape at the middle. One crosshair is where the neck sprouts from the torso -- the neck root (located just above the sternum). The other crosshair is where legs sprout from the torso -- the thigh root (located, for all intents and purposes, at the rectum). The wire, in a crude fashion, represents the spine. The piece of tape is at the waist, where creasing will occur.

Why this is helpful :
-The crosshairs show the direction we're looking at the upper and lower portions of the torso, and how the shoulders and hips are angled. The closer the crosshairs, the more foreshortening you'll get!
-The wire shows which direction, front or back or side, the spine is bent. (Keep in mind that the spine can only bend SO FAR in any given direction!)
-The piece of tape in the middle reminds us how much space to allocate to the ribcage and hip segments of the torso. It's too easy to accidentally elongate the torso, throwing the legs, arms and head wildly out of proportion.

Below is the above rig superimposed over an actual model, the lovely Erica Campbell.

Babe Lab Disclaimer : Non-proprietary photos and illustrations featured on Babe Lab appear for the sole purpose of review.

It's interesting to note that...
-the elbows fall at the midpoint on the wire, giving you semi-accurate proportions for the arms.
-the wrists fall at the thigh root.
-the breasts, unless being acted upon, are always parallel to the neck root crosshair.
-the neck and head can be measured up one additional segment for a rough proportional blockout.
-the midpoint moves up/down the wire in more foreshortened views. Whichever end is closer will be longer, and whichever end is further away will be shorter.

When using the "Crossed Wire" rig, play with :
-the distance between the crosshairs (adjusting their midpoints accordingly)
-assigning the neck root and the thigh root to different crosshairs (essentially reversing the viewing angle or body orientation)
-angling the crosshairs to show tilted shoulders and/or hips

Spotlight on Danni Shinya Luo

2011-09-05T23:04:00.000-07:00

Shanghai-born Danni Shinya Luo fuses high fashion, art nouveau and psychological tension in her elegant, unabashed portrayals of the female form. Babe Lab was privileged to conduct an interview with Miss. Luo at her booth at San Diego Comic Con 2011.

Babe Lab : Hi Danni! Thanks for giving us a moment out of your hectic schedule.

Danni Shinya Luo : Hi there! You’re very welcome! I’m using this as an excuse to not work for 30 minutes.

BL : "Psychological tension" comes from your own description of your work. Can you expand on that a bit? What should we be getting from your stuff aside from some pretty ladies?

DL : When I say psychological tension, I refer to the feeling the viewers get when they look at my paintings. Do they get uncomfortable? Do they feel puzzled or intrigued by what’s happening in the painting? Do they feel charged with emotions? Do the feelings make them question the root motivations for their own emotions? If you feel uncomfortable starring at the paintings then what emotions are you trying to hide from yourself? That’s what I meant, and that’s what you should pay attention to besides the pretty figures.

BL : You're involved with Girls Drawin Girls. [above] What do you feel is the primary difference between works from this collective vs. that of the "perpetually male-dominated world of comics and animation?"

DL : In the years I’ve been with GirlsDrawinGirls, I’ve seen all kinds of comments and criticisms from both sexes. Some people say the GDG organization is amazing; they applaud the recognition of talented female artist doing female pin-ups to empower the gender. Others say GDG is worse than men who exploit the female figure, because we are selling our own sexuality to get attention. I think the truth is somewhere in-between. Yes we are using our own sexuality as the subject matter, but unlike the “perpetually male-dominated world of comics and animation” we are doing these on our own terms. It’s pin-up, from a woman’s point of view. One can’t say that doing so is worse just because some of our point of views overlap with the male gender’s point of view.

BL : I'd say the overlap is pretty significant in your case. Is there anything you feel you can get away with that a male artist might flub? Some subtle yet crucial nuance?

DL : Hmm... Well, personally, I think there isn't anything I'm trying to get away with, but if I have to point out something specific I would say it's the interaction between two female figures. When I have two nude figures interact with each other, I see the message behind the surface, and I try to convey that with symbols in the background and/or subtle expressions.

BL : Artists tend to settle on tools based on feel and ease of use. What's your favorite part about using what you use (particularly the ink and watercolor), and was finding them a revelation?

DL : When I first learned drawing and painting, I apprenticed with this old Chinese watercolor painter from China. Then I tried acrylic and oil in Art Center. After I graduated I ultimately went back to watercolor painting. Because, among all the different mediums, watercolor is most spontaneous one. I love the way watercolor flows and bleeds on paper. It’s very free, and it creates patterns on paper unlike any other mediums.

BL : You've done covers for Marvel's X23. [above] How do you juggle commercial and gallery works? Are you your own dream client?

DL : It actually doesn’t feel like juggling. I just line them up according to their deadlines, and work on them simultaneously. Of course, working on commercial projects I have to follow someone else’s instruction instead of my own, but there's still a lot of creative freedom. I would say most people are their own dream client, because you know what you want to do, and you CAN do what you want to do.

BL : And what's that for, you, mostly? Gallery shows? Do you consider yourself more of a fine artist working commercially or a commercial artist dabbling in the fine arts?

DL : For me it is to showcase my work to a wider audience, in the US and outside of the US. I create to better my technical skills and my concepts. A commercial artist is executing clients' ideas a majority of the time. A fine artist is executing his/her own ideas a majority of the time. I would definitely say I'm a fine artist working commercially.

BL : Be honest. What's the most useful thing you learned at your alma mater, Art Center?

DL : Honestly, it was work ethics and foundation skills.

BL : The hearts above the cleavage...don't think we didn't spot them! What's the story with those?

DL : The heart shape came naturally. The cleavage itself lends to the heart shape. Also one element that is consistent in my work is the representation of femininity. So the heart shape stuck because it serves that purpose.

Danni Shinya Luo is currently hard at work for the up coming two person show in MondoPop Gallery (located in Rome, Italy), and a group show for Ltd. Gallery’s grand opening show, and can be found in numerous spots on the web : Facebook, Twitter, Concept Art, Deviant Art and Girls Drawin Girls.

Project Focus : Gadget Sanchez

2011-05-16T18:20:00.000-07:00

Josh Singh is a character modeler at Blizzard Entertainment, currently working on the top secret Project Titan. In his eight years in the video game industry he's worked on titles like Titan Quest, the upcoming MMO from 38 Studios codenamed Copernicus and as well as the upcoming MMO from THQ Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium Online. When not making games, he enjoys collaborating with his colleagues and spending time with his wife and four children.

Babe Lab : Hi Josh!

Josh Singh : Thanks so much for asking me to contribute to your awesome blog!

Babe Lab : It is awesome, isn't it? Hey. You're the first 3D artist we've had here on Babe Lab. But perhaps that's pigeonholing you a bit. Your blog and CG Hub profile show you're just as capable in the 2D realm. Can you explain the advantages/disadvantages 3D has in the creation of a character like Gadget Sanchez [above]?

Josh Singh : So I concepted Gadget in 2D first. I rarely will just dive right into 3D, especially for something as exacting as a female character. My 2D process is pretty loose, though I just really want to get a general idea and a few visual “hooks” just to give myself a feel of what or who this character is.

BL : You've given Miss. Sanchez lots of nice little touches.

JS : Yes, these are the “hooks” I was talking about!

BL : There's that music player on her collar, a fire extinguisher on her belt, tons of neat little pouches (boot bags, lol!) and a glowing indicator light on that gas-powered weapon. Then there's even more subtle stuff -- the asymmetrical clumps of hair poking through her bandanna, the hex pattern on her knees, the "flammable" decal on the gas tank and the weathering on her shoulder and elbow pads...

JS : I feel there are certain archetypes or tropes that we rely on when making characters. So Gadget is the "cute mechanic" type character. Usually these characters are very tomboy-ish. They wear their hair up or have a bandana, carry a big bag of tools and have some dirt on their face. I wanted to put some cool gear on her. I sometimes approach characters like action figures. Like, if I were to get this particular character as a toy, would I be excited about all the cool accessories and stuff I could put on her? So that’s the starting point for the small details like the mp3 player and all the pouches.

BL : But what's this I see? No goggles? Shame on you.

JS : Hahah, yes you noticed no goggles. She did have goggles at one point, but I thought that was a trope I would omit this time around.

BL : You've got a more rigid version [below] and a posed version [top] with her head cocked, hip thrust and weapon grasped. This, along with an all-crucial facial expression, does wonders for her femininity. Is it difficult having to make something static before you can make it come alive?

JS : Well, the rigid version is what most 3D artists call a “T” pose. We make the model in this pose so that an animator can put bones in the model more efficiently. It is also a good pose for sculpting and making sure the parts of her costume are right. Now on the other hand, there are artists out there that work in a strictly sculptural sense, meaning they start from the beginning with a pose in mind and sculpt all cloth folds and accessory positions in relation to the pose from the start. These guys are usually working in toy design or sculpting maquettes for 3D printing. Think of it as the difference between a sculptor who sculpts in clay, and a puppet maker who is making something that will animate and have the illusion of life. I have been on both sides of that and both have their joys.

BL : Virtual female models are almost as harshly scrutinized than their real life equivalents. Thoughts?

JS: I think that you are spot-on in saying that female models are scrutinized to death. Monsters and males are easy; they both can err on the grotesque and get away with it. I mean look at a boxers. They have these jacked-up faces that are really fun to look at and draw. An attractive female is another creature entirely. Volumes have been written about what makes a woman beautiful, and the fact is that the standard we have for female beauty is a product of very exacting conditions. What I mean is that lighting, makeup and camera angle as well as focal length all contribute to how a female who is widely considered attractive is perceived. So, when deciding to create a female character and present her in a way that is pleasing , you have to think like a photographer almost. Females have a lot of nuances that are a pain to do in 3d. I think that if you have a solid foundation in anatomy and you know the landmarks you will be pretty successful. I think you hit on a lot of that stuff in this blog.

BL : I'd like to think we're getting there!

JS : Lets talk about boobs for a sec. Is that okay?

BL : That's....great, actually.

JS : Boobs are such an ever-changing aspect of the female character. The costume dictates the boob shape. This is where just straight sculpting in a pose vs. creating a character for animation can differ. When you're sculpting into a pose, the breasts, fat and all the fun little bumps and valleys of the female form can be expressed and exaggerated. It’s a beautiful thing. BUT, when sculpting in that “T” pose, you have to keep everything neutral. Because the animator will add deformers to the jiggly bits to make them react to computed physics during the rigging phase of a character. So this can be problematic when you are making certain types of characters. The first example that comes to mind is "What if you wanted to make a really sexy, but slightly chubby chick?" Well, that “T” pose is going to be very unflattering, but once you get her rigged, you can pose her into a really sexy pose to really show off those nice curves. So you really have to be able to see the end from the beginning sometimes and keep in mind, when working on a female character in 3d, that if she isn’t hot yet, she might just need longer eyelashes and some make up.

BL : Your work has a distinct flavor, which can't be said of every character artist. What do you attribute that to?

JS : You know, I had a buddy of mine ask me this a while back -- to sort of distill my style. So he watched me sketch in Zbrush for a few minutes while I attempted to describe my thought process. As I went on, he got all frustrated and said “Dude, you are just like one of those cooks who doesn't document his recipes! You just throw a little of this and a little of that in and keep tasting!” I think he sort of hit the nail on the head. I have worked with a lot of artists in my professional career, and I feel I try to take (steal) something from each one of them. I have a certain leaning towards the Disney-esque side of things. I think they have a wonderful way of distilling a character to the bare essentials, making sure it works and then adding on top of that. I really think that Disney ideas are in my sub-conscious.

BL : So no rules, then?

JS : I think basically if I had any “rule” it would be that the character just has to be interesting to me. It needs something fun that could possibly hook it into a wider universe. That may sound kind of broad, but it’s the only thing I can think of that would constitute a “rule.”

BL : Did you, at any point, consider streaking her face with grease and calling her "Dirty Sanchez?" Sorry, that was in poor taste.

JS : Yeah, “Dirty Sanchez” did come up during the brainstorming process, hahaha! But really, I have always sort of had a crush on that tomboy mechanic chick archetype. I always thought that girls who could do things and be useful as opposed to just being a pretty face were immensely attractive. In high school I always had crushes on girls who did sports and had that air of confidence. The name Gadget came from a discussion I had with one of my buddies. We were talking about possible names for his baby on the way and he said that he would love to name his daughter Gadget. I thought it was a cute name. Come to think of it, I think there was a cute mechanic chick from "Chip’n Dale’s Rescue Rangers" named Gadget. Wasn’t she a mechanic too?

BL : And a mouse! Don't Google search her, though. You get some horrible, erotic fan pieces.

JS : ...

BL : Give the 3D geeks some pipeline specs on this thing, just so we can say we covered that.

JS : Well, for Gadget I modeled everything rough in 3ds Max. Everything that is hard edged and needs a mechanical bevel is done in Max. Cloth, leather and the face is done in Zbrush. So I take my base mesh that I made in Max, bring it to Zbrush, sculpt the crap out of it, then run the plug in for Zbrush called “decimation master.” Then I do a process called “re-topolgy” in which I build polygons over the decimated sculpt in a program like Topo Gun or 3d Coat. You can do it in Zbrush too, but I don’t wanna. This process gives you a model with topology conducive to animation and laying out the U.V.W. Channel. U.V.Ws (or “UVs” as they are affectionately known) are the first step in painting the textures for the model. Once I lay out the UVs I take them to Photoshop and paint all sorts of fun maps to feed into the shader, maps that tell the shader how shiny certain pieces need to be, maps to tell the shader what color things need to be, etc.

BL : Complicated!

JS : As far as polycount, I just wanted her to be under 10,000 triangles. Her textures are at 1024x1024. Anything larger that that for games is a waste, imo. At least right now.

BL : Thanks for your time, Josh! And thanks for making Gadget Sanchez! She came out awesome!

JS : Anytime! You are a gentleman and a scholar. It was my pleasure.

Card Trick

2011-05-15T15:17:00.000-07:00

When drawing girls, it's all too easy to default to a "standard" (often standing) pose. The following trick is loosely based on a compositional tool Andrew Loomis wrote of : informal subdivision.

The gist of informal subdivision is that the canvas is cut up in an orderly-yet-random fashion, giving you a variety of spaces and angles to work with as you draw. You needn't adhere to the lines; they're just a guide.

Card Trick ™ ® © makes use of this principle, but twice, with two "cards" overlapping each other as foreground and background. Keeping roughly to the borders of your cards, draw half of the body onto one, and the other half onto the other. Which half you decide to put in front and which in back is up to you. The results become even more drastic/dimensional the more the cards overlap. Shuffle up!

Afterthought :

In the above examples, I've actually still shown too much...could have overlapped more! The "correction drawings" below demonstrate this. Note that in example B I've experimented with pushing this pose further into perspective. Card Trick can be a starting point!

Regardless of how successful your experiments are, they should at least bring increased spatial awareness and help generate challenging poses you're not used to drawing.

Elvgren photoref

2011-04-18T13:24:00.000-07:00

Here's a link to side-by-side comparisons of Gil Elvgren's models and the paintings they helped create. It's fun to see all the editing that took place.

Exercise : Body Constellations

2011-03-26T17:41:00.000-07:00

The approach outlined here (which will doubtless be the subject of some future live demo) should not be construed as an exact proportional guideline, but rather a loose armature for figure construction. Imagine you're a sculptor building upon a wooden base with a length of wire. The principle is the same.

There are three primitive armatures you can get lots of mileage out of when inventing poses. If you're ever hard-pressed to think of a clear action to portray (and who of us isn't?), one of these armatures may help jar something loose. You can think of them as variable, four star constellations.

-The Dipper
-The Check
-The Zig-Zag

This comes from the idea that the distances from the ankle (first "star") to the knee (second "star"), from the knee to the hip (third "star"), and from the hip to the sternum (fourth "star") are approximately the same.

These distances will change depending on viewpoint/foreshortening, but let's look at how such "constellations" appear in Gil Elvgren's work.

Notice also where and how the ground planes fall. One is more straight-on, one is more skewed, and another is almost a sliver.

Exercise : Building a Figure From a Constellation

Step 1 -- Lay down three connected, equidistant lines : a zig-zag, a dipper, or a check. (Hint : zig-zags are the most common.) Experiment with the angles of these lines...how much they compress and extend. Try out different things.
Step 2 -- Rotate the page until you see something that strikes you.
Step 3 -- Drop in a ground plane in perspective (needn't be exact). This plane will determine the angle from which you view your figure, and acts as its platform.
Step 4 -- Begin to "solve" the pose by logically figuring out how the figure would interact with that ground plane. Start with whatever is contacting it, usually (but by no means always) a leg.

"Dipper" example:

"Check" example :

"Zig-Zag" example :

Ask yourself :
-What's contacting the ground?
-What's supporting the weight?
-How is gravity affecting the head?
-How is the spine curving/twisting?
-Where can the body rest on itself?
-What can be hidden?
-How can redundancy be avoided? (Perfectly symmetrical features, duplicate "twinning" limbs, major masses all pointing in the same direction, shoulders/hips/feet resting on similar levels, etc.)

Here's a page of zig-zags. You can see how the "constellations" were drawn, how the page was rotated, ground planes indicated, and figures solved. Try it out!

Lab Crits : Death Knight

2011-03-14T21:14:00.000-07:00

Have a piece (either WIP or finished) you want critted on Babe Lab? Write to us! We'll give you a quick (and hopefully informative) analysis and paintover!

Justin Owens writes :

"A few days ago I said f*#@ it and started a pinup for a death knight. [upper left] I unabashedly cheated by hiding the arms and legs. I wanted to keep this painting as stress-free and fun as possible, so simple was better! But now I've reached a point where I'm not sure what to do with it. Do I consider it done and move on, or do I keep refining it? Are there areas that just don't read?"

You latched onto something very pivotal in that second sentence, Justin. If you'd cropped your death knight differently, or drew her from a different angle, you might have been able to get away with "simple." But in this frontal, full body shot, your concealment of those limbs is just a tad too obvious. Babe Lab's suggestions follow!

1) Look at that big, flowing robe. Seems like that would give her hands something to do right off the bat. And while you COULD keep both legs obscured, wouldn't you agree that sliding one of them out into the open ups the sex appeal whilst introducing some angularity? Optional, of course!

2) Backtracking a bit, there's something out of whack with her proportions. The breasts seem a little too low, or the neck a little too long. Let's sort that out. Sometimes re-drawing the figure in underneath the garments helps you get a sense of what's where.

3) Her head, torso, and hips are all pointed in one direction. For variety's sake, one of these could be facing another way. Which one is up to you, but look what happens when you turn that hooded head!

4) In your character's silhouette, there are some subtle barbs wreathing the shoulders. The horns on her helm are likewise thin. If you play these shapes up, see how they help lead the eye inward?

5) Lastly, this is supposed to be a sexy death knight, no? For this, a neutral facial expression just won't do. Whether a maniacal sneer or a devilish, come-hither grin, the viewer needs to make contact with her. In the above treatment, her hood obscures one of her eyes, breaking symmetry and contributing to a sense of mystique. And that cast shadow provides a surface line that solidifies her features.

With these notes out of the way, let's list what's successful about this image.
-poppy contrast on those glowing eyes
-"vibrating" colors
-clear top-left light source
-shoulder pads are not "cloned" -- we have a larger, advancing one and a smaller, retreating one

Good show, Justin! If it's too late to reverse-engineer this piece, perhaps these observations will aid you in your next one. And thanks for being the first to submit!

Spotlight on Mr. Jack

2011-03-09T07:57:00.000-08:00

Australian artist Luke Mancini is perhaps most widely recognized for his prolific work on the Starcraft franchise, the game that spawned his "Mr. Jack" handle and ultimately landed him a full-time gig at Blizzard Entertainment.

When not up to his infra-red visor in Zerg entrails, it's not uncommon for Luke to unleash some serious cheesecake. Case in point : Here's a piece he whipped up exclusively for his Babe Lab interview, "Ambition."

Babe Lab : Thanks for joining us, Luke! Beer?

Mr. Jack : Most definitely! A black Brazilian Xingu perhaps?

BL : I have Pabst...

MJ : *sigh*

BL : Let's get right down to it. A hydralisk, a T-Rex, or a Frazetta-style jungle princess : which would you be more likely to draw first? (No pressure.)

MJ : From the latter to the former respectively, I think - though preferably combining the tyrannosaur and princess - from purely a personal enjoyment perspective. After all, one's jungle women should surely have some sort of context, don't you think? And what better a context than a cretaceous one!

BL : You've just been itching to say that in casual conversation, haven't you?

MJ : Ha! Oh most definitely. You've got to take these opportunities where you find them.

BL : Your work shows a wide range of interests within the geek spectrum. (Note : This is not a put-down.) There's your sci-fi stuff, your dark fantasy stuff, your prehistoric stuff, your comic stuff...is there a universe you feel most comfortable in? Which do you think lends itself best to pin-ups and why?

MJ : As far as comfort goes I would probably have to choose the fantasy end, and I think I would say the same for pin-ups, probably because I feel the presence of 'magic' and the supernatural in whatever sense I see fit to accept at any given moment allows one to get away with the most. I do love science fiction of course but there is at least sometimes a rational part of me that finds it easier to accept a scantily clad angel than a girl in a mech suit with no armour from throat to mid-thigh. Though of course that's certainly not to say there aren't cleverer ways of going about sci-fi pin-ups than that, or that I'm not occasionally drawn to exactly that. (Plus from a purely technical side when you're drawing sci-fi stuff you always have to pay a lot more attention to perspective and proper construction what with all that tech, so a warrior girl clutching a spear clad in naught but bearskin does one-up mech-girl in that respect as well.)

BL : The vanishing points are less obvious while you're being attacked by a mastodon.

MJ : Precisely! Or, at least, you get away with fudging them a little better in that case.

BL : You've attained what could be called a "direct painting" style -- a very bold, immediate lay-in of tone and color (as seen in your process section). How did you arrive at this technique and in what ways does it differ from your sketchbook approach?

MJ : Where it came from is sort of a difficult question since it really has been a gradual transition, but I think there are a couple of reasons for it - one being that it's a lot quicker to get to a 'finished'-ish piece (especially when working with a sort of rough painterly style as I do a lot) than to go through sketches and neat line drawings and greyscale rendering first. The second is perhaps a bit more of a stylistic thing but it really helps get a richer natural feeling to your colouring if you leap straight into it - it feels more like mixing paint, I guess, and you can get more complex and interesting things happening with colour a lot sooner. That said, depending on how tight I want my final I will do sketches of varying tightness, often working directly over the top of a rough colour comp just to plan out details or work out my anatomy properly.

BL : Your progress over the past few years has been staggering. Do you attribute this to any sort of formal art training, or is all just observation, experimentation and tireless toil?

MJ : Well to start off I wouldn't count any training; my uni course was in Graphic Design and while interesting and still fairly relevant, as far as painting and art goes it wasn't in the same direction. So no, I think it's been pretty much self driven in all 3 categories. Something super important to my own development especially is experimentation; getting out of your comfort zone whether technically or stylistically (I can't say I experiment quite so much with subject matter a lot of the time though) really helps push you along.

BL : When drawing girls, what aspect do you feel is most important to depict, physically as well as psychologically? Is there anything that gives you trouble? (Girls are troublesome, after all.)

MJ : Looking through my gallery it might look like I would answer that there are two particularly important aspects to depict - and I would have to admit that I do definitely have a penchant for bustiness in my pin-ups - I think the face is always the most important part to get right in an image, both to make clear any emotional intent of your image and to make it work as a successfully sexy pin-up, even if the only expression you're using is a sly come-hither or the like. This might sound facetious, also, but you've pretty much summed it up there - girls are definitely most troublesome, and while I would say I that I've got a pretty good grasp on things pretty much everything will at some point give me no end of grief, whether it's a face on a certain angle, hands or feet, a particular twist of the hips that just isn't working. To pinpoint something especially that I think I have to work on more than others though is probably getting some more variety into my posing of characters; I often find that I have a couple of fallback poses that I end up relying on when more adventurous things turn out too ambitious.

BL : Art often reflects personality. Looking through your galleries, I'm seeing a lot of play and an almost total lack of restraint. Are you (a) a free-spirit, (b) a mad genius, (c) an untamed, frothing were-beast or (d) none of the above? Should we be scared of you?

MJ : Haha. To be perfectly honest I would probably go for d, mostly because it can sometimes be difficult for introspection to really get a proper answer and I can't quite decide. I approach art as a release, for all sorts of things, and especially now that I'm working full time in a relatively straightforward creative environment I find myself pushing my personal work into more and more playful directions - and so yeah, I try not to hold myself back and just let myself go a bit sometimes. I'd like to think I'm not particularly dangerous, but I imagine only time shall tell.

BL : Time, or a trail of mutilated art directors.

LM : Haha if I'd stuck with doing educational illustration that could quite possibly have been the case, but I think Samwise is pretty safe (at least for the moment).

BL : What kind of music would your ideal muse be into, and how would this affect her look and attitude?

MJ : I think I'd feel sort of bad saying 'the same sort as me', and I'm not sure that would be quite the right answer anyway. Interesting music, at least; musicians who make music without worrying about the trappings of popularity or the mainstream (not to say that they can't be popular, however you feel the need to use that term); with a good dose of melancholy thrown in for good measure, perhaps. (Part of me is just tempted to say 'post-metal' here, however). As far as reflection on personality goes I think that'd mostly lean towards a thoroughly artistic sensibility and the confidence to follow her own interests whether they're accepted by the norm or not - not to mention the attractiveness of the whole art-alt-goth-ish style...

BL : Games or girls : which is more interesting and why? (Answer carefully.)

MJ : Girls, by a a bit of a margin probably (if you'd asked 'art' there instead I might've had a harder time, though I'm still not sure . . .). The 'why' part is a little more complicated to get into; I'd like to think these days that it's more than mere adolescent fascination (and I'm not quite sure whether your question's about women artistically, or in a more immediately physical sense, though of course both are wonderful). As I said earlier, I'll always lean towards the pin-up over the space marine.

BL : Which direction(s) do you see your art taking in 2011 and beyond, or do you even attempt to steer it?

MJ : When it comes to things I should probably be working on and improving I probably should steer myself a little better, but on the whole I like to let these things carry on organically; you can at least be sure that I'm going to be carrying on my pin-up art through though, however it develops along the way.

BL : Does that mean we can keep prying pieces like "Ambition" from you?

MJ : I have to be prodded sometimes but yes, I think I could probably be convinced to keep contributing.

BL : Excellent. Thanks, Luke.

You can see more of Mr. Jack at his Deviant Art and CG Hub pages!

Animal Leg Comparison

2011-03-02T20:24:00.000-08:00

This will come as no surprise to the leg fetishist [NOTE : To draw any aspect of a woman well you must first turn it into a fetish.] and is sort of a no-brainer after you've studied even the most basic surface anatomy, but it's important to remind oneself that the limbs taper. It's a quality that can (and should) be exaggerated, even in skinnier women.

Legs -- widest at the hip/glute, skinniest at the ankle
Arms -- widest at the shoulder/deltoid, skinniest at the wrist

This is most noticeable in animal limbs.

As much as I hate to compare women to beasts or meat, it really drives the point home, don't you think?

Spotlight on Amy Matthews

2010-11-21T21:06:00.000-08:00

Amy Matthews is a freelance artist best known for "CartoonPink", an ongoing series of sexier-than-life illustrations focused mainly on adult industry starlets. For the past two years she's done calendar illustrations for XXX imprint Digital Playground. The 2011 edition is on sale now.

Babe Lab Disclaimer : Non-proprietary photos and illustrations featured on Babe Lab appear for the sole purpose of review.

Babe Lab : Thanks for taking the time to be interviewed on Babe Lab, Amy! It's great to have you with us.

Amy Matthews : Yes! Thank you for discovering my work. It’s fun to be among all of these wonderful artists you have collected here.

BL : Can you describe how and when CartoonPink took root, and how porn/erotica has shaped your take on art and sexuality?

AM : CartoonPink began as naughty little drawings in my sketchbook. I found that using porn as my figure drawing reference was really educational. There are always some very unusual and challenging positions depicted in porn, as opposed to the typical figure drawing poses. My focus quickly became seeing how far I could push the explicit nature of my drawings while at the same time maintaining a sweetness and beauty to the image. As the number of sketches grew, I decided to turn these themed images into something of a collection. That’s where CartoonPink started.

It’s been a way for me to explore a fun subject matter in a style that I enjoy. I like cartoons and I like porn, so it made a lot of sense. I was excited to see that other people were enjoying it too! I think people are a lot more open to sexual images now. After all, you can’t type anything into a search engine without getting something pornographic as an image result. We’re just more exposed to it, so I think we’re becoming a little less shocked by sexuality.

BL : Your work, due to its startling likenesses and exaggerated proportions, could be described as caricature. Do you wince at that word? Have you always had a strength for portraiture?

AM : Why thank you! I don’t mind the term “caricature” at all. Many of the images I have up on my Facebook page are pretty much that; flattering caricatures. That’s mostly because Facebook won’t allow any boobies. Left to my own, I generally don’t worry about the likeness. I just enjoy drawing beautiful images that are loosely based on a reference photo. But since I started working with Digital Playground, I have found myself needing to create recognizable portraits of their contract stars, so likeness is very important. I’ve done illustrations of a few other porn stars for fun as well, but I’m at my happiest when I can just doodle away without the responsibility of making it look just like the model.

BL : How did you build your relationship with Digital Playground?

AM : I had the opportunity to meet with Joone and Sam, the founder and the president of Digital Playground. They had seen my work online and were interested in speaking with me about working together. They are both sincerely enthusiastic and professional people, and I feel very fortunate to be able to work with them. To be honest, Digital Playground has been one of the most positive experiences I have had as an artist working for someone else. They are very receptive of new ideas and tremendously supportive. We’re talking about several projects right now. I’m looking forward to 2011 to say the least!

BL : Your MySpace page lists a few artistic influences which are solid to say the least : Barbara Canepa & Alessamdro Barbucci (Sky Doll), Massimilio Frezzato (The Keepers of the Maser), Juanjo Guarnido (Blacksad) and John Willie (infamous fetish photographer and bondage artist). Any more honorable mentions? Do I detect a hint of Dean Yeagle? A Whiff of Wendling?

AM : I JUST discovered Claire Wendling the other day in fact. Very fun stuff! Dean Yeagle is a great master of anatomy. You can actually feel the weight of Mandy when she moves. It’s always fun to discover new artists and see what they’re doing. I try to remain as true to my own style as I can. I have to draw in somebody else’s style when I work on the mainstream projects, so its fun to let loose and do my own thing with CartoonPink.

BL : Photo and video reference, you make clear in your FAQ, is fueling CartoonPink. You wield it deftly, taking healthy liberties with the source material which enhances its spirit and vitality. Do you have any tips as to one how one should interpret reference when they use it? You simplify hands so nicely!

AM : Thank you! Reference is very important to me. I really feel that if I have good reference material then I can do a good illustration. All of the answers are there in the photo, regardless of how I interpret it. Interpreting it through my own style is the easy and fun part; I just sort of translate it in the way that I want it to be seen. That normally means simplifying a lot of things and choosing the right details to replicate. I like simplifying the hands and feet so they don’t become the main focus of the image. Too much detail in hands makes them look old. I like to simplify and beautify the yummy parts too, while maintaining detail in the highlights and shading. As for the backgrounds and props, I generally like to keep those things pretty simple as well so that the main figures stand out... plus I’ve never been tremendously good at drawing landscapes so keeping the background simple is also an easy way out for me. Hee hee.

BL : Let's talk shop. I'm seeing scanned pencil lines, digitally airbrushed. What scale are the originals at, and how do you go about your finishing passes in Photoshop? (masking technique, brushes, layer structure) Do you use your reference to get lighting/color palettes as well? How long do you like to spend on an average image?

AM : Yep! All of my work begins as a pencil drawing. I generally don’t work very big. Most of the time I just work on an 8x10 size paper.

When I scan my drawings into Photoshop, I like to stick with using just a few layers. The bottom layer is my color and shading, the second layer is my drawing (set on multiply) and my top layer is where all of my highlights are. I’ll sometimes add another layer to the very top (also set on multiply) to put some of the pinks back in, on the ears, lips and naughty bits.

As for using selections, I’m kind of random in that department. Some images need careful masking, and others don’t. I use to be reeeally careful and cut out everything when I first started using Photoshop. But now I only roughly cut things out when I need to. Everything can always be fixed and touched up in Photoshop…that’s why we use it right? The other thing I do is that I always apply a mask to my drawing layer. That way I can safely erase any extra sketch lines that don’t look nice. I do like to maintain some sketch lines because I think that helps keep the image from feeling too “computery”.

I only use the photo reference as a visual guide. I don’t pick colors from the photo. I tend to prefer using my own judgment when it comes to choosing colors. Most of the time, I like to pull the color palette back a bit. I like to use mild tones to make the images feel dreamy and soothing against the erotic situation.

Different images take me different amounts of time to complete, but in a perfect world when I’m not juggling other things, I can create a painting from start to finish in a day. Normally, there are other things getting in the way, so safely I can say two days.

BL : If you would, tell us a thing or two about rimlight.

AM : It’s the one thing that I look for in a reference photo! It’s all about the rimlight in my book. It’s amazing what it does to making an illustration feel three dimensional. I always look for images that have it, and when the photo doesn’t I will sometimes try to add ones in that look right. When shooting my own reference material, I always try to include a nice, strong, rim light. It makes things look so clean and shiny. It’s a really fun step to do during the painting process!

BL : You've depicted your share of pornstars. Who's the hardest to draw and why? Have you ever been asked to draw a live subject?

AM : Katsuni has probably been the trickiest to draw. I think Katsuni is sooooo gorgeous and I kind of feel under pressure to depict her in the most flattering way. She has this magically exotic look that’s a bit hard to caricature, because she’s already so overly beautiful. So yes, I would say Katsuni has been the most difficult. But she’s still very, very fun to draw!

I’ve had a lot of people assume that I draw from live models. These are generally people who are not artists, but who have seen that romantic version of the artist portrayed in movies. I’ve attended figure drawing classes, but other than that I don’t draw from live models. I’m all about doing a photo shoot so that I can get THE pose with THE lighting I need in order to do a good painting. That way I can always come back to the illustration later if need be, without the pressure of having a model needing to hang around waiting for me to work it out on paper.

BL : You've a not-understated fondness for women. Do you think being one gives you a sensitivity male artists lack when drawing cheesecake? What are some peeves you have when looking at other artists' work? (e.g. -- "Man, those hands are too big!")

AM : Maybe. Yes, I guess so. I mean, I suppose that I look at women in a slightly different way and that has probably shaped my style. I certainly wish that I could take the airbrush tool to myself! Hee hee. I can’t tell you how many times I have wished that I could digitally edit myself. It’s so much fun making something beautiful and I like to be able to show sexuality in a way that I would like it to be seen, with sweetness, beauty and style.

As far as pet peeves go, most of them have to do with how cartoon porn is drawn. The majority of it is all drawn in an anime or manga style, and though the technical skill is generally good, I just don’t find the characters attractive. It all comes down to personal taste, so I can’t really knock the artists, but I personally don’t like the character designs. So I decided to create my own characters in a style that I like.

BL : Any plans for a collected edition of some kind? Would you ever do (or have you ever done) a comic?

AM : Oh I would LOVE to! I have a few ideas already, I just need to figure out how to do it. I mean, I know how I would put it together artistically but I need to figure out the other side. The printing, the distribution, all of that stuff that isn’t so fun. I’d need to make sure that I wouldn’t end up going broke trying to get a bunch of books published. But yes, the passion is certainly there! I’d love to do several books!!!

BL : What advice would you offer the budding pinup artist, and what, in turn, is your typical reaction to those who disapprove of such subject matter?

AM : It’s a tricky subject when it comes to porn. People are either okay with it or they have a serious aversion to it. So, I just try to focus on the positive and embrace those people who enjoy my work. They’re the ones that contact me, anyway. For other artists that want to get into drawing erotica, I would only suggest that they celebrate their own style and interests. When a creation comes from a sincere place of passion, it really stands out regardless of the subject matter.

Miss. Matthews is currently hard at work on more delightfully naughty illustrations and is gleefully accepting private commissions. Cartoonpink.com is currently finding a new home, but look for more of her work at www.sexygallery.com and follow her on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter!

Vocab builder : "Anisotropic Shading"

2010-11-18T21:11:00.000-08:00

Here's an interesting term that comes to us from the world of 3D rendering. Anisotropic shading, as it applies to pinup art, can be seen as those wavy highlights in shiny hair. The highlights are irregular, as they conform to the grain of the curved follicles. They appear as a band when viewed straight-on or as a circle/semicircle when viewed from above. On curlier hair, they get even crazier!

You'll see a lot of anisotropic hair shading in comic books/manga, usually as a bowed gradient strip or a simple jagged line. Of course, not all hair requires this kind of treatment. It's just nice to know why it looks the way it looks.

Here are some real-life and illustrated examples of anisotropic shading.

Babe Lab Disclaimer : Non-proprietary photos and illustrations featured on Babe Lab appear for the sole purpose of review.

Peek At Process - Rayph Beisner

2010-11-01T09:36:00.000-07:00

Rayph Beisner is a concept artist for Zenimax Online Studios. He's also draws a mean pinup! Extensive notes follow...

Image Goals

For this painting I wanted to put together something that was a bit of a throwback to the golden age of pinups (think girls on airplanes) but with a little bit more of a video game-esque vibe, hence the miniguns and ammo belt. Not the most mind challenging image and subject matter but it's damn entertaining to draw!

Notes On Drawing Females

Avoid ‘chiseling’ faces. You want to keep your brush strokes solid enough to establish forms but attempt to avoid over-structuring the face. Larger brushes in the early phases help with this. Block in the larger shapes and whittle your way down to smaller, subtler forms. The blending brush is great for the female form in using it to establish hard edges with smooth gradient transitions.

Painting Process

1.) Initial sketch. When approaching a final illustration having a solid sketch in either line or value to establish your composition and overall shapes is important to ensuring a ‘stress free’ workflow. In this particular case having soft feminine curves contrast against the utilitarian vehicle structure creates a nice contrast of shape to play off each other. Although the vehicle she is laying on is somewhat complex, I want to keep its importance downplayed to ensure our leading lady here remains the center of interest.

2.) Nothing fancy yet, just a solid color layout done in a layer underneath the lineart (if using scanned line art be sure to set the line layer to multiply to ensure the white is transparent). For this image I jumped straight into color because I tend to find using layer modes such as overlay or soft light tend to muddy up the colors in the end or just do not end up as rich as they might establishing them yourself in the beginning. With that said, having a solid value foundation for your color to play off of is absolutely essential.

3.) At this stage I like to start knocking out the line art and laying in some base shapes with paint. I do this by reducing the opacity of the line art layer to around 60-70% usually. Another good trick is to right-click the line layer and go to the blending options and go to ‘color overlay’ and set the line art to a color hue. This makes it easier for painting over so your eyedropper never accidentally selects a ‘black’ from the line art. Be sure not to overrender your females at this stage (like I nearly did). Focus on soft, simple form to establish a good foundation.

4.) Here is the first initial step of painting over the line art completely to establish my forms. In a new layer above all the other previous work I begin painting my basic forms in. At this point you still want to keep things simple and focus on the overall form, working big to small. Admittedly, I over render faces too early but I find this often helps me establish lighting scenarios as well as help me keep the focal point clear throughout the painting process. On this image I thought giving her a slight bite to her bottom lip would add a little character/sex appeal. Also on female figures establishing the eyes can be key in defining the character. Here I used the typical slightly oversized eye forms to establish an area of interest.

5.) Once an initial painting pass has been put down, I like to go in and start fleshing out secondary details. In this case going so far as to add whole new elements to the image (headlights in this instance). I find it preferable to remain as adaptable and flexible as possible in the process of painting. A great quote one of my teachers gave me was to ‘treat a painting like a drawing, and a drawing like a painting.’ Here you will notice I also begin to add more feminine features like her makeup and start to hit some of the specular points on her body for interest like the nose/lips/breasts/butt.

6.) This stage is simply further refinement. Focusing on finer details and smaller objects. Fleshing out the surface materials for the objects in the scene. At this point I will often throw down an overlay layer or two and adjust/enhance some color properties within the image. In this case I also used a gradient map layer copy set to ‘soft light’ to pull my colors together more effectively.

7.) Cleanup rendering, adjusting values and final effects (highest highs and darkest darks) as well as any additional post effects needed (I added a slight blur to the back half of the vehicle to add a little depth to the image, cheesy but can work for you in the right instances).

You can see more of Rayph's lavish creations at his blog and CG hub page!

Spot the Navel!

2010-10-16T16:12:00.000-07:00

What, if anything, can we say we know about belly buttons and the surrounding area of the stomach?

Babe Lab Disclaimer : Non-proprietary photos and illustrations featured on Babe Lab appear for the sole purpose of review.

1) There is a gap between the ribcage and the hip, which allows for bending and twisting.
2) Between this gap the waist becomes very thin.
3) If a horizontal line is drawn at the thinnest point of the waist, the navel falls beneath it.
4) More specifically, the navel rests at the center of the rectus abdominis muscle, at the top of the lowest, somewhat longer "ab."

Happy navel spotting!

60s/70s reference goldmine!

2010-09-24T13:06:00.000-07:00

The 60s/70s reference photos here will need to be printscreened in order to be saved, but prepare for a tidal wave of nostalgia!

Peek At Process - Palner

2010-08-21T19:44:00.000-07:00

Jonas P. Sonne, a.k.a Palner, was kind enough to grace Babe Lab with a behind-the-scenes peek at his take on an old classic. Take it away, Palner!

See the standalone princess here!

Do you have a process piece you'd like to see pinned on Babe Lab? Write to us!

Boob Physics 101

2010-08-08T21:37:00.000-07:00

Here's a subject that's very near to our hearts, figuratively and (in the case of lady artists) literally. Breasts should be just as fun to draw as they are to look at, and here's the big secret : you don't draw them until after you figure out what the rest of the body is doing. Then simply follow logic. That's it!

First off, let's identify what breasts are, for the most part : fat. Soft, delicious fat lying on the ribcage. For the purpose of this physics demo we're going to be dealing with larger, fattier breasts, because they'll hang and deform in ways smaller breasts won't. Well, they will, but in a less noticeable (and therefore harder to draw) way.

Unless bound by clothing or filled with something other than natural fat, breasts will react to the effects of gravity, being pulled down in a pendulum fashion.

Breasts are attached to the pectoral muscles, so when the muscles move, they move. You can think of it like a marionette puppet. Pull one string, and one moves. Pull two, and both move.

Breasts tend to flatten out / deform when they come into contact with surfaces, even themselves.

Breasts move as a unit. If blocked into a box, you can split it down the middle to help determine perspective. As the box squashes, rotates and/or skews, so do its contents. Also included in this image is an example of how breasts can stretch and squash if manipulated by outside forces. They are amazingly malleable!

Breasts are affected by motion, somewhat less so when bound by clothing. They will take longer to "catch up" to whatever the action is, so will drag behind, seeming sometimes to swing in the opposite direction of the motion. This, along with the effects of gravity and deformity, contributes to a look of weightiness.

There's no end to what breasts can look like and what they can do! Hopefully you'll be able to "plan" them more carefully by keeping some of the above in mind.

Porn Caveats -- pt. 1

2010-07-30T22:21:00.000-07:00

We've danced around this for long enough.

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!

The Body At Rest On Itself

2010-07-04T14:36:00.000-07:00

pose analysis

Between activities, the body strives to conserve energy by using itself as a brace, a platform, a pedestal. A hand cradles the head so the neck can rest. An arm settles at the side rather than being permanently suspended. Alleviate puppet-like stiffness from your poses by letting go of (or at least loosening) some of the "strings."

Drawing notes : Drawing contact is a challenge, but don't be afraid to obscure/overlap large parts of the body to achieve a look of relaxation. Accept that you can't show everything; in fact, it's best that you don't.

Hand / Face Combos

2010-06-18T16:57:00.000-07:00

pose analysis

What's on display : face (Babe Lab also threw in other stuff for good measure. You're welcome.)

Why it works : Getting the hands into the facial area creates an expressive frame, and draws attention to yet another area where a woman is soft and smooth.

What's important : As with overlapping the face with hair, we need to come to terms with the fact that, by introducing hands, we ADD TO and SUBTRACT FROM the head. The hands and head fuse into one positive shape, and what's left of the face is a broken, negative shape. Be bold about these overlaps and let go of drawing every part of the face the way you're used to. Your audience will fill in a missing lower lip, cheek, jaw etc.

Get physical : This is a splendid opportunity to showcase physics/tactility. In an aghast expression, you may have the hands physically lowering the jaw, whereas a pooped expression may show the hands smushing the face up. If you've ever seen a model tug at her lower lip, it's hot. Use it. Also, depending on the position of the arms, there are all sorts of ways the bust will contort, which you may find infinitely more interesting than the standard droop. The more fun you have with physics in the softer areas, the more fun your pinup will be to look at.

What exciting hand/face combos can you think of?

X-Ray Pinups

2010-06-16T15:31:00.000-07:00

Eizo, a Japanese corporation that makes computer displays, has a grimly sexy way of showcasing its products, in this case via a skeletal pinup calendar.

Check out the full gallery here, here, or here. Thanks to everyone who pinged Babe Lab to provide this very useful anatomical reference!

'Manhattan' Pinup Process - Chris Bourassa

2010-06-10T16:42:00.000-07:00

Babe Lab's latest walkthrough comes via Chris Bourassa, an associate art director at Propaganda Games in Vancouver, BC. "I work with some exceptionally talented artists and do my best to keep up. My life basically consists of drawing pirates all day and girls all night. Unless, of course, I'm playing poker, hiking, drinking or wondering what my life will be like when my wife gives birth."

You can find Mr. Bourassa and all his leggy ladies online at his Deviant Art page. Thanks so much, Chris!

Silhouette Challenge #1 - showing the goods / hair

2010-05-30T15:03:00.000-07:00

When we look at an image of a pretty girl there are many things we may respond positively to, though one of the first things (and something we should make good use of in our pinups) is the overall stamp of what we're seeing and the information it gives us.

Knowing when and where to supply this information is part of the fun of picture making, and should be left to your own judgement, but there are some titillating tricks that can be employed to enhance the sex appeal of a silhouette.

SILHOUETTES ARE THE CHEAPEST WAY TO SHOW FORM AND PREVENT YOU FROM HAVING TO DO A TON OF RENDERING TO GET YOUR MESSAGE ACROSS.

Group 1

A) A sassy, but fairly standard contrapposto pose. With the arms and ribcage at this angle, the bust gets lost inside the outline.

B) By brushing back her hair, turning her ribcage slightly and losing the left arm behind the body (the hand re-emerging at the waist), we get her left breast breaking the silhouette. Since we already have her right arm outlined, this is welcome information!

C) A more drastic twist gets the face into the silhouette.

D) A full turnaround shows the curvature of the buttock and breast in the same pose. An earring has entered the silhouette here, as could any article of clothing.

Group 2

E) Sitting up pose, head-on. Fetching hip and hairline, but...

F) ...a slight twist of the ribcage gets the breast into the silhouette. The bordering hair and arm line help in sending the eye here. There is also the somewhat vulgar option of showing where the buttocks meet the ground, though depending on your aim, this might be an area worth drawing attention to. Curves are exciting, and it's an area that shows contact with the ground.

G) A more dramatic twist (comboed with a 3/4 view) gets the breast and hands into the silhouette. If toes are important to you (as they are to some), they could be just as easily defined in such a pose.

Group 3 - Hair

H) By allowing eyelashes to break the silhouette we get a true sense of their length. But oh no, look at that bland, blocky hair shape! It's so uniform.

I) This is better : a tapering, non-uniform shape with lots of width variation. Even though the shape is curvaceous, it conforms to a geometric structure (and one more interesting than a parallelogram). But there still remains the option of breaking it up a bit...

J) ...like so. Note the use of "lost" and "found" hair shapes for the finer strands, giving the impression that, in parts, the hair thins out so much as to be indiscernible.

K) Breaking up hair silhouettes is not without risks. If you're going to puncture hair with holes and break up its outline with fussy "stray" strands, it's best to do this at the edges of your shape...

L)...rather than the center. See how the contrast and detail level is too much? Further, any holes that are of the same size/shape, or strands that are of the same width tend to make hair look less natural and pasta-like. Make sure you maintain a balance between big, medium and small shapes.

As a final note, you should always choose a hair shape that best suits your pose/composition. Use it as a means of leading the eye, obscuring, framing, etc. Don't let it be arbitrary; let it be a tool.

The Frazetta Girl - observations on

2010-05-15T12:14:00.000-07:00

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.

Babe Lab Disclaimer : Non-proprietary photos and illustrations featured on Babe Lab appear for the sole purpose of review.

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.

Spotlight on Milenko Tunjic

2010-05-09T10:23:00.000-07:00

Milenko Tunjic draws a mean girl. He also bakes a mean cake. He loves his games, his TV and his comics. He's a real man's man! Recent art credits include concepts for games : 'Legend of the Guardians : The Owls Of Ga'Hoole', 'Destroy All Humans' (1 and 2) and 'Rocket Power Beach Bandits', as well as many cancelled projects. In the late 90's and early 2000's he did conceptual designs for Saturday morning cartoons on behalf of Columbia Tri-Star-Adelaide Pictures (via Brisbane based Zoonimedia) including 'Godzilla', 'Roughnecks : Starship Troopers Chronicles', 'Max Steel' and 'Heavy Gear.' He's also done a couple of Hallmark specials and Adam Sandler's forgotten animation 'Eight Crazy Nights', not to mention illustration and comic works for various magazines including Australian Mad Magazine. He lives with his family in Brisbane, but is originally from Bosnia, affectionately referred to on his blog as "The Old Country."

Babe Lab : Let's get this rookie question out of the way. Where did the pseudonym Ferdinand Kreozot come from? Is this just your comic alter ego, or is there more to it?

Milenko Tunjic : Well, that story is old, and itching to be told. It all started many years ago.... I was an immigrant refugee, fresh off the boat, with a young family and desperate to take care of them. After a mild posttraumatic stress episode during which I lost my government supplied job of bar assistant in a hospitality industry (which in itself is a meat for another story) I lost my social support payments and was left with no money to live.

At that point I resorted to wandering various bus stops and train stations hunting for the loose coins people with too much money unwittingly drop around. During my coin hunting exploits, I met a shady individual who was on the same quest as me. After a brief fight we had over a half eaten Big Mac which was discarded by some fool who did not see its nutritional value and had abandoned it on a bus bench, we decided there was no point to fight and we shared a hearty meal. The guy was overweight and quite unshaven, but he moved and spoke in a dignified manner. He introduced himself as Louis Oswald Dimsdale, a descendant of long line of Dimsdales, a game designer and an entrepreneur. I was a bit ashamed of my petty East European name and also did not want him to find where I lived, so I introduced myself as a Ferdinand Kreozot, a descendant of long line of Kreozots, an artist and a free spirit.

We had a long talk, both bitched about how the coin collecting industry was going down the drain, being killed by the plastic credit card boom. We agreed we were in a dead end and decided to start a business and get ourselves some of that plastic card stuff. Since Louis had some experience in board games and I had some art skills, we decided to join our strengths and start a company which would supply new and unique board games to the world. We called the company 'Dimsdale And Kreozot United Games Manufacture' and spent several months developing our first board game. It was called 'Face Paint Dart Board' and consisted of an instruction booklet (proudly illustrated by me), a two tone jar of face paint and a packet of cheap darts. We hit the flea markets of the neighboring towns and managed to sell tens of our products. But then the disaster hit. Reviews of our game were not stellar, and due to some unforeseen injuries that occurred during the game play, we had to put our second game ('Family Anarchy') on hold indefinitely, disappear from the board game market (as well as the flea markets) and go back to living our lives under our real names.

Years passed. I got to make a living from my drawing and Louis disappeared off the radar. I forgot all about it, until one day I got an e-mail from him suggesting we revive Dimsdale And Kreozot United Games Manufacture as he has heard about these new, so-called electric games people play on their computers and he said he had an idea about one of those. He also finished some community course and learned to do so called "code" and we got together once again, much like the Beatles, and started ploughing on our new product.

And so 'Tito The Bouncing Alien' was born. Sure, we invested a year of our life in making it, but payout was great - we had hundreds of satisfied customers and made hundreds of dollars from it each! Success was too much though so we decided to take another break. 'Dimsdale and Kreozot' is in hibernation now, but after all the things I've been through as F.K., I decided to continue to call myself Ferdinand Kreozot on the Internet.

Boy, what a long and boring story, hey? Funny thing is that more than half of what I just said above is truth :) I also promise that, as of now, I will stop trying to be silly, and try to answer your questions in a professional and dignified manner.

BL : Hahaha! Please, don't edit yourself on our account! // Your motion-packed gestural sketches prove you're an avid observer. The pic above shows a girl with her head tilted, peering down the sight of a gun, a subtle but brilliant touch. As it pertains to drawing girls, what sorts of gestures do you find most pleasing and communicative?

MT : Well, it depends on what I am trying to convey, I guess. I like drawing two kinds of girls.

First are drawings of girl "heroes." They are strong characters and there is a plot as well, so I am trying to put as much of a story behind the sketch as I can. In that case, I am trying to think what would be the most natural pose for a particular action, what would a real person do in that situation (I am not sure I am successful at that yet, and that is the main reason I do not dare to start producing a graphic novel or any sort of sequential story yet. I do not feel I got what it takes).

And then there's sexy stuff. In that case, I am thinking what pose would present the girl in a way attractive to the viewer (what pose would the real girl take to get guys interested). Also, with such sketches, I go through a lot of reference and usually pick poses, gestures and expressions that work for me. See, most of the "sexy girl" art I have on my blog I've done for myself and all of them are still practice pieces in preparation for (hopefully better) work I want to do in the future. But I am always glad when other people like them, too. However, if we go back to your question, the most honest answer after all this blabber would be: I have no sense or deep knowledge of what works. It is instinct more than anything else, and it just happens as I sketch. I am definitely no master of action and pose, nor do I think about them much before I put brush to the paper. I also try not to show my failures, of which there are many. I hide them away, never to be seen.

BL : Ah, but sometimes you'll feature preliminary drawings for more involved pictures on your blog. Do you have any secrets for keeping the freshness and energy level high on something you've already drawn? This is a sensitive subject for most self-deprecating artists, but you're obviously doing something right here.

MT : Ah, that goes many years back. I was doing designs for the animation industry and the first leg of the process was always rough sketches. We would draw and then send them through to LA offices and the director there would pick ones that he liked. We had to clean them up and do standard turn-arounds in a neutral pose which could be used by the animators (in Korea) to bring them to their animated life. I was always kind of proud of my rough sketches and I found that particular part of the process to be the most fun. Cleaning them up and doing turn-arounds was a tedious chore I had to go through and I hated it. Problem with outsourcing the animation is that if you look at your designs as 100% of style and detail required, once they pass through the outsourcing machine you are lucky to get 60-70% of quality back. So you really had to make sure that every line you put in made sense and was easy to understand.

I struggled for a couple of years, and then, one day, it just hit me: If you approach your clean-up as a creation of an entirely new design, and dare to tweak and change it at that stage as well (instead of trying to preserve what worked in your previous sketch), it becomes fun and you find yourself constantly thinking about building on your initial sketch and making the final design better. And then I started keeping my initial sketches really rough, focusing on more basic elements, as I was adding all the detail in the clean up stage. And it worked. Sometimes I would go through a few clean-up stages to get what I want, too. Unfortunately I only figured that out as I was moving across to the games industry, so the animation place never saw any of my nice work :) The downside is, (at least for me) it does not work every time, and when it doesn't I just give up and start from scratch.

BL : The artist is often told, usually by academic types, not to study from photographs -- that they flatten form, that they're someone else's static vision, etc. You have a different and refreshing approach to learning from photos, playing with proportion and field of view. Can you tell us a bit about what you're going for, why you do it, and what affect it has on your imagined work? As someone who got a later start at drawing (which is incredible, by the way), what's your take on academia?

MT : Hehe. I never knew many academic types, and being a self-taught guy, I guess I do not know any better than what I do. Most of my friends are blue collar workers and simple types who do not think much of me doing silly pictures and they do not know much about form or static vision. I often lie to them that I clean offices for living as that seems to be more manly and more acceptable way of earning money (within that crowd) than being a concept artist. At work, things are also simple: directors tell me what they need designed, I design what I think is right, considering the theme, style, atmosphere, hardware limitations and poly and texture budgets, tweak and revise as per their request, and everyone's happy. Nobody has the time to hang around and discuss merits of this way or the other. I get to design a monster or a robot, or whatever, and if it looks cool and fits the budget and style, that's it. People are too busy hitting the milestones to take it deep into any academic discussion.

Personally, I think that people in the art world talk too much and try to make all this art stuff seem much more serious than it is. I also hate a piece of poor quality art wrapped in the layers of verbal bullshit. In my opinion, if you have to use words to describe your painting or sketch, you failed. But then again, what do I know? :)

As for using photo-ref in my work, no one ever told me what you just said about their use, flattening form and the vision belonging to others. In my personal "proper" work, I never used them and do not intend to use them ever, so if I ever do a graphic novel or any other serious work, it will have to come out of my head. Professionally, when I looked at the trends, and even though I despised photo "tracers", I realized that it is a very simple and effective way to impress the average audience. Also, I hated having the art directors who did not know any better calling me over and showing me art they found on the 'Net and telling me how great it looked without ever realizing it was ripped straight from the photo ref. So I started doing it myself. It is a great tool to get the lighting and volume right, and to the average Joe it looks impressive. But I felt guilty for doing it and I decided to only use it so I can get some of the volume and light info hard wired into my brain and then I can apply it to my own work, so all these are just a practice to get me more experience. I felt guilty about just emulating what I see in the photo so I started changing bits and bobs I did not like and redesigning them to something more appealing to me as I go.

Also, I found it difficult to get enough will to go through and invest time in doing it if the topic did not grab me. I was always a huge fan of the naked ladies and they became the only topic which inspired me to see at least most of the process through before I get bored with it. There is more to it all but it is not really important :)

BL : You seem to have a love affair with lips. Is this your favorite female facial feature?

MT : Haha. My wife once told me I had beautiful eyebrows. It got me thinking. I thought it is only women who can separate one bit of a guy's anatomy and admire it. And I think it is because the guys are clumsy, poorly constructed creatures and hard to find attractive, so women have to break us into the segments and find at least something on us they can admire. For me, the female form is a bundle of features and they all have to work together to make a woman attractive. Also, with years, I realized that attractive women come in all shapes and sizes and it is the whole package that makes the sum of the parts appeal and arouse. Pushing features and seeing how far from real can I push and retain attractiveness (at least to myself) is what makes it fun. All this, and the final answer is yes, lips are my favorite feature, but in particular relation to other facial features, too.

BL : You often talk of bettering your "skill", a common theme among frustrated (i.e. all) artists. Do you mean this in a purely technical sense, or as a way of thinking? Do you think any artist ever attains the skill level they desire?

MT : I mean it as the combination of everything you mentioned in your question. It is about having better rendering skills, more confident lines, but also higher ways of thinking, "crazier" ideas and so on. I never drew something I enjoyed looking at two weeks later. I think that my art needs so much more work to get "there" and being at my age I am well aware I will never reach my goal. But as the years went by, I learned to enjoy the journey. But, because I am so harsh about my own work and skill, I see weaknesses in other people's work too. And that is comforting somewhat :) I am also both jealous of and grateful for existence of many cool artists out there who have figured it all out and pump these beautiful pieces that inspire me and show me the way. I have met many artists in my years, and most seem to be humble creatures with similar problems as me, regardless of the level of their skill with a very few exceptions. Guys who are exceptions are much better enjoyed through their art than through their personality. In the end I think it doesn't matter what attitude you have towards your work and your skill, as long as you produce art for others to judge and enjoy. There's beautiful work out there produced by weak, insecure artists. The only thing I believe is that, once you get entirely satisfied with artistic level you reached, you stop to grow. And even that is OK as long as the point you reached by then is high enough to produce awesome works. Amongst many others who influenced me and helped me grow (to wherever it is I am now), there's one guy who was so talented and incredibly nice and humble whom I admire above the rest. He died many years before I was born and his name is Andrew Loomis. I read and purchased his books any way I could and his words and his attitude impressed me so much. If he was still alive, I would do whatever it takes to become his friend.

BL : Your chosen art weapons would appear to be a combination of Staedler brush pens and a Wacom Cintiq. Which gives you the most pleasure, or is it an unfair comparison? What else do you like to draw with?

MT : I draw with anything and on anything. Cintiq is an awesome tool, much more than a pen and paper, but it is not the pen and paper. For rough sketching I still prefer the old sketchbook and whatever pen or pencil I get with it. It is funny how your style changes depending on what kind of pen you use. (At least in my case) even the topics I choose to draw depend on the pen I am using.

BL : You've spent some time in games, doing 3D models and textures in addition to your concept work. How, if any, has this shaped your aesthetic? How does comic work compare to working in games?

MT : I have not done much comic work in ages. It has been all concept art for games, for many years. 3D was something I was desperate to learn back in the day, and it is an amazingly useful tool for a concept artist and even a comic artist. Doing concepts for video games has to deal with hardware limitations, different styles, working with a whole bunch of other people to achieve the end result, so it teaches you to be flexible and also, even subconsciously, you start to implement bits of different styles and techniques into who you are, and it definitely affects and shapes your personal work. Having it as a job also makes you draw at least 6-8 hours a day which in return provides practice and experience. It is all extremely useful and only makes you better. However, being a pen for hire drains your creative juices, and you burn your energy on visualizing other people's ideas. Finding the balance is very important but hard to do. I hope to find my way back into comics some time soon, and I think that all this work I did in games gave me a huge arsenal of weapons and tools to use in my future endeavors.

BL : Loaded question : Your stuff crackles with machismo and dark, sexualized humor, making it all the more compelling and gritty. Is this cathartic for you? How do you deal with the puritans who can't handle it?

MT : Machismo and dark, sexualized humor? :) That is where I came from. And that is what is funny to me. I spent first 25 years of my life in a country that was nothing but macho culture driven, with last two and a half years in the middle of war in which in which everyone was trying to kill everyone else. It affects you whether you want it or not. Getting that stuff out of the system is what makes me happy. And I think it is appropriate. It is like adding the sauce to the plain spaghetti. Sterile art is not fun. As for puritans, I do not know, I think it is their problem more than mine. I can and did handle a lot, so should they. As with anything else, if whoever does not like my art, they should not check it out, but find something that makes them happy. It is easy to achieve. If it is not to your liking, change the channel.

BL : Are there any artistic trends that bother you?

MT : No:) It is all good, at least anything I've seen so far. I am not a big fan of crappy modern art that has to come with a 100 page booklet explaining what it is, but hey as long as it makes someone happy, it has a purpose to serve.

BL: You're no stranger to heroic fantasy, listing "Legend" author David Gemmell as a big inspiration. You've also made mention of Alfonso Font, Frank Frazetta, Moebius, Milo Manara, Dubravko Matakovic, Tanino Liberatore, Horacio Altuna, Uderzo Herz, Juan Gimenez, Roberto Raviola, Hermann Mejia, Bazaldua, Frank Cho, Mike Weiringo and miscellaneous anime (sometimes referring to your sketches by the Japanese term "rakugaki"). Who else out there fuels your creative fire? Which models, if any, would be on that list?

MT : I am horrible with names :) Other artists, whoever they are, are constant inspiration regardless of their skill level. As for models, there are many. They sit in my folders, and I occasionally flick through those looking for awesome poses or contrast or whatever. When I find it I draw. I do not know any names as I get my images randomly, by turning the safe search off on Google and then typing random words, often silly, and trying to see how long it takes for first hardcore image to make its appearance. I am too lazy to search for particular site or a particular name. I would have a few but they do not cross my mind at the moment. When it comes to the porn stars, I like the vintage girls. Sarah Young always displayed amazing enthusiasm in her work as well as did Tori Welles and Nikki Dial and many more I can not remember now. Ah yes, and Melissa Hill! They are all good.

BL : What's your take on lifedrawing?

MT : Back in the days of Pandemic, we had the life drawing classes at the company's expense (the only ones I ever went to). Models were mostly girls and quite nice looking. We would get in conference room. A bunch of weirdey programmers would join with their sketchpads as well. The girl would get naked and we would proceed to do the drawings. (Once I peeked into one of the programming guy's sketchbooks and there was a single line that he was constantly thickening while keeping an eye on the naked model all the time :))

For me, for some reason, there was nothing sexual about it. Naked female and pad and pen, very clinical, almost like a surgery or a gynecological exam. But one time, the conference room was taken and we had to do the session in the common area. So the girl could not get naked; she posed in a summer dress that she came to the studio in. I could not draw jack shit because every pose she took was disturbingly arousing and I could not focus. Funny thing, that.

---

Favorite quote : "I am grateful for every good artist out there, because their art brings so much joy to my life. Sometimes I am jealous of their skill, but the pleasure of seeing those beautiful lines makes jealousy melt away quick :)"
You said it, Milenko!

You can follow Mr. Tunjic's ongoing (and sometimes NSFW) exploits at Tales From The Old Country. A cross-section of his work can also be browsed at CG Hub. As of this interview (05.09.10), he's currently available for full-time and freelance illustration work.

Over The Shoulder

2010-05-08T22:25:00.000-07:00

pose analysis

What's on display : buttocks

Why it works : The voyeuristic audience has been caught in the act! In this electrifying moment of discovery, the subject seems to affirm with her expression "Yes, I see you checking me out. No, I don't particularly mind." Or, alternately, "What the -- HEY!" Either has a distinct attitude.

What's important : We see many parts of the body in dynamic opposition to each other. The torso twists in conjunction with the neck. There are creases at the trapezius and the back. Eyes are looking at the viewer, whatever it is (sometimes us), in a flirtatious or startled manner. The shoulder nearest the chin presents a good opportunity for overlap. The breast is often seen in profile or semi-profile.

Hair for cover : Don't like drawing necks or backs? Let her hair down! Hair tends to whoosh around slightly when the head turns, so this can be exaggerated and otherwise exploited to the lazy artist's advantage.

Facial Color Banding

2010-05-01T19:46:00.000-07:00

A rookie mistake in painting faces is giving them but one, even hue. What we see in nature is different.

This handy tutorial on facial color banding comes care of concept artist / girl magnet Carlo "Chainsaw Art" Arellano.

1) After an initial rough-in, a basic palette is chosen.
2) The base color is applied under the pencil lines.
3) Banding is loosely laid in. "Cool on the jaw, reddish on the cheeks and nose and yellow on the forehead." This has to do with how close the skin is to the bone and how much blood is flowing to the tissue beneath.
4) Banding is smoothed out.
5) Further modeling -- lips receive red, cheeks and forehead recieve lighter values, irises get a local color.
6) Forehead gets yellower, eyewhites go in, more modeling around eyes/cheekbones, nose/iris/lips receive highlights. "I paid attention to the planes and edges of the face, because light behaves according to the edges described there."

In addition to Mr. Arellano's extensive work in games and film, he's also a teacher at Pasadena's Concept Design Academy. Thanks for the tut, Carlo!

Spotlight on Matt Dixon

2010-04-13T16:40:00.000-07:00

Matt Dixon is warrior many helms. He's a freelance digital illustator, part time headbanger and fulltime father. His new book 'Girls On Top' collects his adrenalized and wickedly playful pinup work, and comes hot on the heels of 2008's 'The Fantasy Artist's Figure Drawing Bible.'

Babe Lab : Greetings, Matt. Thanks for taking the time to talk with Babe Lab!

Matt Dixon : Hello, Professor. No problem. I’m very happy to be your test subject for this session. Please just be gentle when you attach the electrodes.

BL : In the intro to 'Girls On Top' (and please tell us any other titles that lead up to this), you mention "Attitude is something I try to give my pinups plenty of. Generous scoops of hell raising, fun loving, ass kicking, lip curling, high volume heavy metal attitude. With rainbow sprinkles and plenty of chocolate sauce." That sort of says it. You don't go into this with an air of seriousness, and your work has the look of someone it'd be fun to have a beer with. What's your secret?

MD : There’s no secret that I’m aware of. My personal pin-ups are fashioned from straight up, honest self-indulgence. I think that might be what attracted me to the genre – there’s no pretence that the image is anything other than entertainment. No one strokes their goatee meaningfully in front of an Elvgren and ponders on a deeper meaning or what ol’ Gil was trying to express. We know exactly what he was trying to express – “Hot damn! She’s a babe! Schwing!” That’s not to say there can’t be some depth to the piece, but fun comes first and foremost.

BL : There's a mini-tutorial at the end of the book that shows how one of your pinups takes shape from concept to completion. Let's talk about the concept part. How much of it is premeditated and how much is left open-ended? "Today's theme is 'Queen of the Jungle.' GO!!!'" vs. "Let's see where the wind blows."

MD : I used to sit down with an empty head, start scribbling and just react to what was happening in front of me. There’s still an element of that from time to time, but I found that approach would often see me journey deep into the painting process with unresolved elements in the image. This invariably leads to tedious mucking about trying to sort those areas out when I should be focusing on getting the painting finished which is distracting, time-consuming and, crucially, not fun. These days I tend to chew ideas over in my head for a while so I have something more solid to work with once I have a pen in my hand. Sometimes the images are fully developed and just need to be downloaded from brain to canvas, other times they need work once I’ve started to squeeze them out, but most of the thinking has been done which leaves more grey matter free to steer the pen. There’s usually several concepts rattling around inside the noggin which I’ll pull around when my brain is idling – driving, watching Desperate Housewives, on the can, etc. In fact I’ve been kneading the ‘Queen of the Jungle’ theme while tapping out my reply. My twist is that the jungle in question is the concrete jungle (see what I did?) which makes our Queen the Queen of the ‘Hood – a bootylicious, streetwise honey in her court (basketball court, of course) surrounded by a posse of ghetto fabulous jungle animals.

BL : On the completion end, how far into a grayscale painting do you tend to get before making the jump to color? Have you ever worked differently and, if so, what were its drawbacks? The consistent rendering patterns you've developed are obviously the result of much experimentation.

MD : I try not to go to colour until I’ve resolved any problems I can see. Maybe I’ve not nailed every detail down but I need to be confident that I know where I’m going and I find it much easier to sort all that stuff out without concerning myself with colour. Just how far things go depends on the image and how well I’m working that day – sometimes the value sketch is done and I’m throwing colour at it in ten minutes, other times I can be wrestling with problems for hours. I’ve worked in many different ways over the years, using lots of layers, laying in flat local colour and rendering up each element individually, jumping straight in with big brush strokes, they go on and on, looking back it feels as if my first few years painting digitally (as opposed to pixels, vectors or other digital methods) had very little structure in terms of technique. I suppose that just shows that it took a while to find a method which I was comfortable with. See, I’m a very impatient guy and once I summon some enthusiasm for an idea I want to see it done. NOW. That’s a great source of energy to direct into one’s work, but it’s taken me quite some time to develop a process which is compatible with that aspect of my personality and I think a lot of that early experimentation was me trying to find shortcuts and ways to make the picture happen faster. The only way to achieve that is to make your process more efficient – having a set working method means I always know where I am in the development of a painting which helps to avoid impatience creeping in and throwing off my groove, and familiarity with the process means I’m not stopping to think what I should be doing next which allows me to channel more energy into painting boobs.

BL : One of the things that sets your pinups apart is your costume choices. Since you take many of them in a sci-fi/fantasy route, it's not the usual assortment of sheer teddies, lace braziers and fishnets. You've got rusty, battle damaged armor plating, tattered animal skins, cyberpunk leather, high-tech jumpsuits and everything in between. Is this all stuff that's part of your natural repertoire, or do you find yourself seeking out reference? If so, where?

MD : I think it’s natural repertoire in as much as the costumes I wrap around my girls is an extension of the personality I’m seeking to project and it’s probably fair to say that I lean somewhat towards women which I suppose one could describe as assertive. It’s not all simply plucked from the dank corners of my childish mind however; I have many reference books and often start the day with a trawl around online image depositories looking for interesting stuff to add to my digital reference library. If I need reference or inspiration, I’ll turn to my bookshelves or hard drive for help. Rather than pull up a specific photograph for reference, I’ll tend to assemble a variety of images and take elements from several of them – for an armoured helmet, for example, I might pull up a few different pieces of armour, two or three shots of metal surfaces, some horns, feathers or hair for plumage and so on, then combine my favourite stuff in the painting. This forces me to make the end result my own. If I work from a single photograph, I struggle to avoid making a fairly straight copy of the reference material which I feel sits uncomfortably in a finished image.

BL : You entered the video game industry the same year you were allowed to legally purchase alcohol (16 in the UK), and your client roster since has been formidable -- Blizzard, Sony Online, EA, to name only a few. How has game art impacted your approach to illustration? You have a particular knack for nailing materials, which would seem to suggest you've done your fair share of textures and skins.

MD : You have a keen eye, Professor. I have no doubt that my work as a game artist has influenced my illustration significantly. Each generation of videogame technology makes new demands on production artists and I think that process, having to channel and organise one’s creative output in different ways, can be educational in itself. I’m old enough to have worked with several generations of videogame hardware, and I can identify direct lessons that I have learned from each. Going right back to beginning, the days of limited colour, low resolution bitmap graphics really forced an artist to be economical and deliberate with value and detail, and you quickly learn which colours work well together when you can only have four together on screen! I still place marks and select colours very much as I did back then. Then polygons arrived, and once everyone had stopped drooling over brightly-coloured checkerboards reflected in mirror-surfaced spheres, we began to explore the third dimension properly. I’m certain that many years of 3D modelling made a dramatic improvement to my understanding of form and the play of light across surfaces – again, I still visualise complex shapes as polygonal models to help render form. Of all the stuff I learned from game art production, I think it must be the creation of materials which has had the most direct impact on my work. From even the very earliest days of 3D, the idea of visualising surface properties separately – colour, bump, reflection, specularity, etc. - completely transformed my way of thinking about materials in my illustrations. As profound an impact as game art has had on my illustration, I don’t envy the guys working in today’s highly specialised art production pipelines – that’s a tough job.

BL : You're a self-proclaimed metalhead, which carries with it certain aesthetics. Have you also embraced the aesthetics of any notable tabletop RPGs or comics? Who are your chief influences?

MD : Well, there’s a lot of crossover between those genres isn’t there? I haven’t deliberately embraced any aesthetic, but I’ve been drawn towards imaginative stuff of all kinds for as long as I can recall. It’s odd, because I have mixed emotions when presented with this stuff. Some images I find exciting because I’m seeing something fantastic that I couldn’t have conceived myself and I genuinely enjoy the sensation of peering into an imaginary world. Others fill me with pure joy at the preposterous vision on display, and I can’t quite work out why – though I certainly get a kick from the idea that there are folks out there who just don’t care how gloriously silly their paintings might be. If an image manages to inspire both sensations simultaneously, it’s a sure-fire hit. And probably one of Ken Kelly’s Manowar paintings. I fucking love that shit. Chief influences? Of course there’s a massive ocean of artists who I admire for their technical proficiency. Rockwell always floors me, and I’m not ashamed to say that I have wept in front of John Singer Sargent’s ‘Carnation Lily Lily Rose’. In a manly way, naturally. Others influences include Frank Zappa, Robert Crumb, Russ Nicholson, Terry Gilliam, Guillermo Mordillo, Ronnie James Dio, Albert Uderzo, and the entire staff of the Augustiner brewery in Munich, Germany. Prost, lads!

BL : What's your relationship with SQP been like? Who approached who, and how was it different from working with Barron's?

MD : The guys are SQP are solid gold legends. I was introduced to them by the unstoppable whirlwind of awesome that goes by the name of James Ryman and they made the entire production of the book easy and fun. You only need to take a quick look at the SQP site to realise they have a wealth of experience working with artists going back many (many!) years. Barron’s was an entirely different setup, as I had no contact with them whatsoever! The book they published – the snappily-titled ‘Fantasy Artist’s Figure Drawing Bible’ - was developed with a book production company who sold the completed project on to publishers.

BL : The Photoshop jocks out are dying to know, do you have a favorite brush? Did you make it yourself, and if so, what are some of the behaviors and settings that make it work for you?

MD : I alternate between a few different brushes while I work in order to keep some variety in the marks I’m making, but they’re all very similar. They’re custom brushes, created from scanned paint dabs of my own making – very similar to the ‘dense stipple’ brushes in the ‘Natural Brushes’ brush set which ships with Photoshop. I control the opacity with stylus pressure, and use no other features except occasionally flicking on the texture option. Brush size I control from the keyboard.

BL : Ah, so the sampled shapes -- like directional smears, or literal blots with a ragged edge?

MD : I filled about twenty sheets of A4 paper with blobs, smears, spatters, dabs, smudges and every other mark I could think of. Then I scanned the lot, turned them into brush tips and spent the following week or so working through to find those which suited me best. There's a dozen or so in regular rotation, but I still dip into the others now and then. I'd recommend it - it taught me a lot about the wheels and cogs of Photoshop's brush engine and using unique brushes is a step towards giving your work a distinct signature.

BL : If you could hire anyone (living, dead, fictional or nonfictional) to be your model for a day, guilt free, who would it be?

MD : Valerie Leon, circa 1973. The epitome of the seventies amazon. Sadly, I think I would squander the opportunity. I met Valerie (who remains a strikingly elegant vixen) a few years ago, and she graciously gave her permission for me to paint her likeness in one of my pin-ups. I have yet to summon the courage.

BL : What's next for Matt Dixon?

MD : Beer, then bed. Longer term, I happy to paint goblins, barbarians, aliens and busty broads for as long as I can get away with it.

You can see more of Mr. Dixon's dazzling creations at his personal website as well as his blog. Cheers, Matt!

Harnessing Hair - pt. 1

2010-04-04T19:02:00.000-07:00

[illustrations pending]
Babe Lab Disclaimer : Non-proprietary photos and illustrations featured on Babe Lab appear for the sole purpose of review.

A woman's hair is as much a form of self expression as it is an image booster. Essentially a frame for the face, it can either enhance the features or wash them out. Attractive hair is key in creating positive first impressions from 360 degrees, from crown to bangs (sometimes called "fringe") and around to the nape of the neck.

Genetics, age, nutrition and preening all play a part in how a woman's hair looks and behaves. Kept in good condition, hair is incredibly pliable. Care is taken to avoid damaging it with heat and chemicals, as frizzy hair is harder to control. Further, weighing it down with products can make hair static and lifeless, like a helmet or a wig. Movement and "bounce" attract the eye!

Hair is affected by...
-gravity -- Gravity wants to pull hair down.
-body motion -- Hair flow is influenced by the directional movement of the body. Think of it like streamers on a bike.
-body contact -- Hair will be redirected where it meets the body. Hair at rest can help define the forms underneath it (forehead, neck, shoulders, back), acting as surface lines. Hair by a squashed area will appear squashed.
-air current / water current -- Hair gets swept around by wind and water. Think of it as a particle effect, like smoke.
-moisture/humidity -- Hair becomes heavier and slicker when wet. Strands consolidate like seaweed. It tends to cling to any part of the body it comes into contact with.
-static electricity -- Brought about by dryness and friction, staticy hair sticks to itself and can appear to stand on end.
-heat -- Dryers, straighteners, flat irons, curling irons and crimping irons all use heat to make hair behave in certain ways.
-products -- Sprays, gels, shampoos, conditioners, clays, oils, waxes and putties serve to make hair behave in certain ways.
-peripherals -- Pins, scrunchies, combs, pony tail holders, barrettes, headbands, ribbons and rubber bands create cinch-points that either stabilize or redirect hair.

Hair has volume.
Also referred to as "body" and "lift", this is the shape the hair takes on. Sometimes natural, sometimes accomplished with products or peripherals, virtually any shape is possible, no matter how bizarre. Horizontal, vertical or diagonal, if you can think of it, it probably exists.

Hair has various surface properties.
-straight -- fans, folds, drapes
-wavy -- loose, low frequency curves
-curly -- tightly wound spirals or springs -- high frequency
-fine -- thin, wispy
-coarse -- thick, tangly or otherwise unwieldy (the term "nappy" is sometimes subbed)
-lustrous -- high specular sheen, typical of longer styles
-matte -- typical of shorter styles and conducive to texturing

Hair has various lengths.
-short -- These cropped styles fall just at the jawline or higher. This is the most we'll see the ears.
-mid length -- These typically fall below the jawline, but rarely pass the neckline. 50/50 chance of seeing ears.
-long -- Considered the most glamorous, (Some women will even go so far as obtaining extensions.) these styles fall below the neckline. Long hair in front of the shoulders can be used to lead the eye down to the bust, or behind the body to draw attention to the neckline, or keep clear of an outfit. Ears tend to disappear in the mane.

Hair is parted...
-symmetrically -- vertical, straight and down the center -- parting waves in two different directions
-asymmetrically -- slanted, curved, off-center
-zigzaged -- combo of the above
*note : you may see some scalp depending on the severity of the part

Hair is cut.
-blunt -- These severe, high-precision shapes are less soft (and consequently less feminine). Bangs are often sawed off with cleanly defined lines. There are little to no stray hairs.
-textured -- Textural cuts feature more noise, more stray hairs and have a more nebulous shape. Layers give movement and airiness, and are accomplished by cutting pieces out from under each other to create different lengths, sometimes crisscrossed.

Hair is sculpted.
-flipped -- brushed out away from head
-teased -- drawn outward, upward, or otherwise bumped forward to create lift
-poofed -- pulled back and pushed up to create lift
-curled -- via curlers and perms
-bunned -- hair is pulled up, wound around itself and pinned into place
-braided -- divided into thirds and woven
-ponytailed -- An easy, go-to style, top-knotted ponytails add height, show the face and keep hair out of the way.
-pigtailed -- a doubled variation of the ponytail

Hair is dyed.
-color -- Color is used to enhance natural skin tone and pop features. Warm skin is complimented by warmer dyes. Cool skin is complimented by cooler dyes. The idea is to create an overall look that doesn't wash out the features. The name of the game is contrast.
-highlights -- These strips lighten to enhance texture and dimensionality.
-lowlights -- These strips darken to enhance texture and dimensionality.
-chunky -- Bigger pieces or "placements" are loud and obvious.
-subtle -- This is the opposite of chunky. Lots of small, subtle variation. Broken color blends together at a distance.

Hair styles fit occasions.
-bridal -- ornate, elegant, hyper-girly -- lots of curly tresses
-formal/glam -- for red carpet occasions
-casual -- manageable, everyday solutions that are easy to maintain without a stylist

Hair adds an element of mystery.
Depending on its style and thickness, hair can act as an opaque or translucent veil, framing the face in a variety of ways. It can conceal eyes, ears and breasts. Hair overlapping the face and other features helps sell dimensionality, so don't be afraid to obscure! They eye will fill in what's underneath.

Notes on drawing:
-Draw head and face first, hair second! This will help in keeping the hair tethered to the scalp.
-Consider overall abstract, angular perimeter. Think of tree foliage.
-Consider points of origin. Hair will flow from these points according to outside influences.
-Consider cinch-points.
-Consolidate strands!
-Introduce a variety of small pieces, medium pieces and large pieces.
-Show differeing heights.
-Small side/large side - beware of mirroring!
-Show movement wherever possible! To deny a woman's hair movement is to eliminate one of the things that makes it alive and sexy.
-Hair is at the same time highly structrual and seemingly random. Make it work for your composition.

The Bettie Pages - Pt. 1

2010-04-04T10:29:00.000-07:00

In Dissecting Elvgren Pt. 2 we looked at where and how artist Gil Elvgren edited reality to produce a much punchier illustration. Let us attempt to do the same in this, our first look at one of pinup's most celebrated icons, Bettie Page.

Babe Lab Disclaimer : Non-proprietary photos and illustrations featured on Babe Lab appear for the sole purpose of review.

A quick look at the source photo tells us the narrative : Lingerie-clad Bettie is leaning on a stool, staring down the camera with fierce eyebrows. Her mouth, its upper lip curled, is slightly ajar. Her belly is sucked in. Her pinky finger is extended. Her hands and the back of her thighs are contacting the stool, though she would appear not to be totally at rest on it.

-In our drawing, the problematic rug is removed, as it really serves no purpose here. It creates tangents with the foot, in addition to being a dull parallelogram.
-Tilts in body parts are exaggerated (ribcage, head, hips).
-Liberties are taken with Bettie's anatomy (an act her devout admirers would probably deem blasphemous), especially her breasts, which are used to create stronger overlaps that enhance dimension and break up the surrounding space.
-Her legs are splayed further, though the bend given to her right leg was probably not necessary, as her left is already bent, and some shape variation between the two helps in avoiding cloning. Even so, it's something worth playing around with. Anywhere there's a joint that isn't bearing significant weight, it may be adjusted to suit the artist's fancy.
-Her arm is adjusted for the sake of showing hyperextension and closer contact with the hip. It could have been left as-is, but again, these things are worth experimenting with.
-Pinch-in points from the lingerie are exaggerated, creating delightful pooches of fat.
-In the photo, Bettie is lit from multiple sources, producing crisscrossing ground shadows and some undesirable cast shadows. To simplify, we go with its strongest source, top-left. People are biased towards this lighting configuration, so it's a safe bet.
-Contrast is given mainly to Bettie's head, so that the lingerie, shoes and stool don't steal focus.
-Motion is added to her hair.
-Bettie's ear and earring are so obscured by hair and shadow in the photo that this detail can go away entirely and not be missed.

Avoiding Right Angles - Profile

2010-03-29T19:30:00.000-07:00

Stiffness in drawing (especially girl drawing) is commonly linked to right angles. These are most noticeable and least forgiveable when the figure is seen in profile or semi-profile.

A - In addition to being completely rigid, this is a pure profile. It resembles a diagram. Dull!
B - The posture is relaxed some, and by use of overlaps we've moved into the realm of semi-profile, but there's a missing element : glamor.
C - The 90 degree angles are stretched outward even further, and the result is glamorous, even in semi-profile. A similarly eye catching result could be obtained by making the limbs and trunk compress inward. In either case, the 90 degree angles are vanquished.

It's not always possible (or desirable) to avoid right angles, but in such cases it does no harm for them to be rotated off-kilter so as not to be perfectly squared with the canvas.

Try doing a "right angle check" on your pinups-in-progress and see if "fixing" them doesn't create a much more natural look.

Both Arms Crossed, One Arm Grip

2010-03-25T13:55:00.001-07:00

pose analysis

What's on display : breasts

Why it works : These are, for the most part, guarded positions. Depending on how high the shoulders and hands are raised, they serve either to obscure or frame the bosom. Models with pendulous, u-shaped breasts will often hoist them up in such a fashion to de-emphasize the drooping effects of gravity, or any cosmetic scarring on the undersides (obviously not a concern in the pinup world).

What's important : Bosom heaves and is squashed. One or both arms make contact with the ribcage and each other. Particular attention is to be paid to overlaps. Flesh is pinched in and pooched out at all contact points, particularly with a voluptuous model.

Mood Implications : Different postures, head positions and facial expressions accompanying these actions indicate different emotional states -- pride, indigence, squeamishness, shyness, boredom, patience or impatience. Add to this the physical state of being cold.

Dissecting Elvgren Pt. 2 - "Weighty Problem"

2010-03-23T09:46:00.000-07:00

Pt. 1 of Dissecting Elvgren made mention of Gil's use of live models and photoref. In Pt. 2, we look to his "Weighty Problem" piece to find out where and how he edited these resources to suit his needs as an illustrator. The narrative here : "Astonished girl is jiggled by an exercise belt."

Babe Lab Disclaimer : Non-proprietary photos and illustrations featured on Babe Lab appear for the sole purpose of review.

Right off the bat, Elvgren is giving us cues to motion that aren't present in the photograph. We see motion blur on her buttocks (second in line as focal, after her face) and the machine (arguably third). Her hair is flung out in exciting directions. She's even been given a dangly earring that sways, a subtle but effective touch (also note the addition of matching bracelets on her right hand). In reaction to this more violent jostling, he's spread the girl's legs apart, stabilizing her.

Elvgren's model, it's safe to say, wasn't posing with an actual exercise belt. This was obviously some jury-rigged, elastic proxy, for which Elvgren later aquired reference. Since it doesn't even appear to be supporting her weight, as a real machine would, Elvgren has made sure to tilt her torso back in the saddle.

The photo was taken in a studio, so all ancillary background elements have been removed in the painting. The lighter backdrop afforded him the opportunity to lose edges. And you can see all tangencies have been neatly eliminated.

There's a general streamlining of form that's taken place. Any blockiness or stiffness of limbs has been softened. The pinched-in areas, not present in the photo, show her skin to be yielding.

Bringing her torso back does 3 things :
-creates a squash just above the buttocks
-brings the arms back, obscuring the breast (which, in this instance, is not where Elvgren wants us to look)
-allows the head raise and tilt

Elvgren rightly chose to make the waist band lighter, so as not to blend into her garters, and to help further round the buttocks in his rendering.

Note the very readable graphic "stamp" of the painting vs. the muddier, incomplete stamp of the photo. The prop is used as a framing element.

Dissecting Elvgren Pt. 1 - "Inside Story"

2010-03-21T14:45:00.000-07:00

So begins what promises to be a chain of studies of Gil Elvgren's definitive work in the genre. Babe Lab Disclaimer : Non-proprietary photos and illustrations featured on Babe Lab appear for the sole purpose of review.

We open with this piece, also titled "Over Exposure." Elvgren's narratives are simple. "Inside Story" features a scantily-clad girl sitting on an x-ray table presenting an x-ray of herself. We take everything in at a glance, our eye darting from the girl's quizzical face to her clutched garment, to the x-ray, then finally down to the table.

There's no question that Elvgren's handling of color in the oil medium (dubbed "the mayonnaise school" for its creamy quality) is a key factor in his images' liveliness and appeal, but on this first outing, let's examine the underpinning elements.

-Overlaps sell the dimensionality of the subject before any tone or color is applied. Notice the fun "pooch" of leg where it hangs off the table. This is a delightful use of overlap that simultaneously informs us of the girl's softness.
-There are tactile "contact points" at her chest, the x-ray, the table and her legs.
-Elvgren gave his models props to help tell his stories. The "stage" is set/opened for the prop being displayed, in this case the x-ray. Elvgren has even splashed a spotlight on the prop, further popping it from the backdrop.
-The contrastiest, info-rich areas in the illustration are saved for the focal points.
-The background and the less important props, in this case the x-ray table, are neutral. Detail in these areas is sparse to non-existent. To render the mechanism under the table would have been wasted effort, as the viewer is meant to be looking elsewhere.
-Cast shadows always define -- never flatten -- form.
-We see warm bounced light in the shadows, and a subtle reflection of her body on the side of the x-ray table. It's likely a stroke of Elvgren's genius that this reflection draws our eye to the explanatory text stenciled there. With this seemingly redundant detail in place, there's literally no way to misinterpret this piece.
-We are given a variety of fun angles to look at. Her ribcage and head are facing in opposing directions. Even the x-ray is tilted so that we're not looking at it straight-on.
-The graphic "stamp" of the silhouette reads even without interior details.
-"Holes" in the silhouette are low-contrast, so as not to distract.
-Drapery is treated fairly geometrically, to contrast with the roundness of the girl's features.

-Hair and eyes present opportunities for "lost edges."
-Darks of the eyebrow, eyelashes and pupil are very close in range.
-Overall hair shape is geometric, like foliage on a tree. (Squint at a tree from a distance and you'll see it.)

Here are some drawings done prior to the breakdowns above. Such "master study" reproductions (even when linear or crude) help in digesting an artist's thought process. The more faithful you are, the more you're likely to learn. A color study would have been just as informative, but in totally different ways. Next time...

It should come as no surprise that Gil Elvgren, also a skilled photographer in his day, often employed live models to aid him in his work. Though the models were naturally gorgeous, it was Elvgren's sense of humor and knack for storytelling that made his depictions of them truly beautiful. Once a pinup artist develops their concept and carefully designs their composition, then and only then do they have licence to enlist the service of a model. Elvgren didn't copy; he planned with the intent to communicate and judiciously edited reality in his pursuit of the ideal.

The Crawler

2010-03-19T17:27:00.000-07:00

pose analysis

What's on display : eyes, arms, breasts, legs

Why it works : This pose taps into the animalistic side of human nature. The prowling model is the predator and we are her petrified prey.

What's important : This is an action pose! Alternating limb configuration, high/low shoulders, alternating high/low hips. Her head being raised shows a catlike alertness that's preferable to her head being lowered like a sniffing bloodhound. The above illustration shows her looking ahead, but she could (and probably should) be staring us down.

Twisted movement : If you're feeling extra adventurous, you needn't choose a one-way crawl. She could be changing direction while crawling, causing her torso to twist, and her hair and breasts to lurch back.

The Sitter (variations)

2010-03-19T17:25:00.000-07:00

pose analysis

What's on display : legs, breasts

Why it works : These low-to-the-ground, up-gazing, sitting poses imply patience, tranquility, obedience and/or submission.

What's important : Since both arms are supporting her upper body, both shoulders are raised and we see some hyperextension at the elbows. The waist is twisted and the hips are resting on a peculiar axis. Ribcage is low and pointed down, so breasts are likewise low and pointed down. The head can be doing whatever, but avoid cloning the hands and feet!

Touchdown : Be especially mindful of the ground plane in such poses, as extremities will appear to "clip" into it if not properly positioned.

Flexibility : Women are more flexible than men, so it's not implausible to see stretched-out sitting poses like the one above.

The Dual Hip Plant

2010-03-19T17:23:00.000-07:00

pose analysis

What's on display : breasts & legs (forward), buttocks & legs (reverse)

Why it works : This is a confident, powerful stance. "I am woman, hear me roar!"

What's important : Bosom heaves, butt goes up, shoulders are back and the hands are at rest on the hips, or otherwise hooked around the waist area. Weight is more evenly distributed than a contrapposto (though this can fluctuate) as the legs are further apart and pointed at opposing angles. Note that the knees are fairly locked, creating a stair-stepping effect. Since this is a fairly symmetical pose (unless you cock the hip), it will help for the head to be facing in a different direction that the torso, and/or tilted at a different angle.

Interesting note about the arms : This is an opportunity to show off your foreshortening abilities by not making perfect, repetitive clones of each arm. Since they're angled out and away from the body, but also going backward, we will see one more in profile and one more dramatically foreshortened at this 3/4 viewing angle.

The Pushout (Upper Body)

2010-03-19T17:21:00.000-07:00

pose analysis

What's on display : breasts, buttocks

Why it works : Again, it's an offering. "Look at what I have going on upstairs." As a bonus, the buttocks are pushed out. When the arms are placed together, behind the body, we are give the impression of someone bound.

What's important : The shoulders are flung back, staging the breasts, and the pelvis is now behind. We see the top and bottom of the ribcage. The bosom heaves!

Trouble spots you'll encounter : Giving the hands something to do in a pose like this will be difficult unless you give your girl a prop -- a flower, a hat, anything. The alternative is to have her grabbing her butt or twiddling her thumbs, which looks awkward in the above illustrations. A better solution would have been to have one hand grabbing firmly onto the fingers or wrist of the other. To accurately draw such a complex interplay would most certainly require the use of reference or a mirror.

The Pushout (Lower Body)

2010-03-19T17:19:00.000-07:00

pose analysis

What's on display : hips, genitals, legs

Why it works : This is basically another version of the contrapposto above, but since contrappostos can be seen in a number of poses, it should be noted that the lower body pushout (like its counterpart, the upper body pushout) is meant as a sort of offering. "Look at what I have going on downstairs."

What's important : The shoulders are extended back to their limit, and the pelvis is thrust forward. Nude, we are afforded a gracious up-shot of the mons pubis and labia majora. Notice how all the "meat" of the pose is given to one side, literally pushed there by the arms (hands contact hips). Hair has been directed to compensate for this, compositionally.

Variations include... : (1) a lowered chin, with eyes staring down the barrel of the torso, the head angled in opposition to the drastically tilted ribcage (2) a non-contrapposto version with wider-stance legs, both feet planted firmly on the ground.

The Recliner

2010-03-19T17:18:00.001-07:00

pose analysis

What's on display : hips, legs, breasts...pretty much the whole package

Why it works : Recliners are luxurious and relaxing. The figure is either just settling down or in the process of getting up. The viewer is given the impression of someone sprawled out on a bed, couch, beach blanket or whatever. It's a somewhat vunerable moment you don't typically get to witness unless the subject is incredibly comfortable. It could also be interpreted as a prelude to intimacy, and the perfect opportunity to draw a coy or "come hither" expression.

What's important : Tactility! We are looking at a collection of forms (mainly) at rest, so there is resulting contact with herself and the surface she's reclining on. Parts lie on top of each other, wrap around each other, smush together (B), get hooked on each other (C), etc. Also, if one arm is bracing her up, it should show a little hyperextension at the elbow, and have a higher shoulder (A).

Watch out for... : extremely foreshortened, fully-reclined views that don't create pleasing or readable silhouettes, extreme up-angles on faces that emphasize the chin and nostrils (not flattering). Plan your pose and camera angle accordingly!

The Contrapposto

2010-03-19T17:15:00.000-07:00

pose analysis

The eraser marks in this hip-jutting contrapposto are left in to demonstate just how much difficulty a generic pose like this can present when drawing one from scratch.

What's on display : hips, legs

Why it works : (1) In a contrapposto, we see weight shifting from one side to the other, an alluring action in-and-of itself. (2) A good hip/waist ratio is an indicator of health and fertility. (3) There's some nice opposition between the hips and shoulders, getting us away from the redundancy of symmetry and into the exciting realm of angles.

What's important : (1) Center of gravity runs from the weight bearing foot to the sternum. (2) High left hip, high right shoulder. (3) We see some mild hyperextension in the weight bearing leg. Hyperextension is something women's limbs can do, and it should be exploited when drawing them.

How to improve : In the above shot, her visible hand appears to be pushing her hip out, so we really ought to play that up and, while we're at it, overlap her thumb. Since her left shoulder is so low, we can also safely drop her left breast slightly, placing it behind her ribcage, which is facing away from us. As a bonus, this eliminates an ugly tangent (A). Finally, since her left leg is locked and carrying most of her weight, we can freely bend her right, getting a bit more motion into it.

Rear contrapposto : Note the high, tensed buttock on the weight bearing leg and low, slack buttock on the non-weight bearing leg.

A Little Necking

2010-03-19T17:01:00.001-07:00

Naked necks are vulnerable. It's no wonder Dracula loves them.

Long "swan" necks are considered elegant in many cultures, including the fashion world. Models are advised not to hide this quality, even to enhance it with jewelry (earrings, necklaces, chokers), so we as pinup artists should do likewise.

The head isn't a helium balloon; it has weight. Therefore, the neck is never a rigid, up-and-down lollipop stick, but a natural continuation of the 's' curve of the spine. It's thinner at the base and thicker near the ears, only appearing otherwise because of the sloping trapezius muscles that flank it. Note that the area beneath the jaw is not indented. Rather, it has a slight thickness.

The neck's swiveling, twisting array of motion should be employed to create large (lg) and small (sm) negative areas to either side of the head. Even if the difference in size is negligible, this will do wonders in loosening up the pose, and introducing variety.

The mastoid muscles in front and the trapezius muscles in back are really the only ones that require any sort of definition. Avoid drawing adams apples, veins, tendons or any excess wrinkles resulting from a pinch, as these will make the neck look sinewy and grotesque. The severity of the neck pit and collarbones will be dependant on the pose and angle you've chosen, and how volumptous your subject is. Err on the side of thin necks vs. thick ones, as the latter are a decidedly manly trait.

Tummy In, Tummy Out

2010-03-19T16:59:00.000-07:00

Tummy In
The the lungs inhale and the stomach muscles tense, flattening or inverting the belly and exposing the bottom of the ribcage. This is the configuration you'll want to draw if your damsel is gasping, leaning backward, or trying on a corset. Note the heaving bosom!

Tummy Out
The lungs exhale and the stomach muscles relax, making the belly protrude. We see less of the ribcage, and the belly button might be a bit reduced, if not smashed flat. This is the configuration you'll want to draw if she's sighing, leaning forward, or bellydancing! The bosom drops.

Occam's Razor / Signal to Noise

2010-03-19T16:57:00.000-07:00

Occam's Razor is a principle that basically asserts that the simplest solution is best. Pinup artists would do well to live by this motto, as it applies to everything : the message being communicated, the design itself, and how it's executed. Our aim is to send a clear signal, and, whenever possible, reduce noise.

Which pinup idea sounds most successful?
1) Janet is a fan of freshly baked pies, but she's dropped hers on the ground! Oops! (simple signal)
2) Janet is a fan of freshly baked pies, so she's filling out a job appliation to work at a bakery. She has a thought balloon above her head with an image of herself at the top of a pie-castle, brandishing a crown and scepter and backed by a waving banner declaring her Queen Of All Pies. (complicated noise)

Which visual treatment sounds most successful?
1) A economical, flowing arrangement of decisive, well placed lines and/or brush strokes. (simple signal)
2) A boorish, chaotic excess of lines and/or brush strokes. (complicated noise)

First Guest Tutorial : Tiffanny Varga

2010-03-19T16:44:00.000-07:00

Tiffanny Varga hooked up a smashing set of tutorials on facial proportions. The pictures say it all!

Babe Lab is go!

2010-03-08T13:54:00.000-08:00