In respect to most wondeful forms

Thanks taron, this was relaxing.
Much more than it was with this lady:

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We were almost divorced before our relationship really began.
I completely lost the easy flow of last one, so I tried to escape in time consuming blending and detailing.
This leaded me into a crisis were I was willing to throw everything away.
I really hate myself, that I can't paint half as good as I want to. As I always wanted to.
Everything is a compromise, damned!
Where is the knife, where my ear!...But that guy could paint. Aaaarrrrrrgh.

The only thing that could calm me down was smudging around her breasts.
So I did this for a while.
Smudge, smudge, smudge...mmmhh...NO! .......smudge.....smudge....smudge......ahhhh, better!
Finally I was able to finish her and immediately finished with her.
Good bye love & hate. You are done, you are gone.

(Colorize will be done in new verve version when available, I guess. Maybe never. I am divorced.)

I am a pussy.
Could have been better though.
Comic hair?

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[Taron]

AH...there it is! The second picture didn't show when I first saw the post...
...so this is about the first one (all gray...)...
What's with the gloomy self pity up there under a very detailed study like that?
Well, time consuming blending and detailing really rarely pay off, because they tend to cement any initial stiffness even more. I believe, it's best to let go and watch your own feelings when you paint. If you get anxious and tense, then you're really not in the right mood and shouldn't force yourself. I always say that a painting returns what the artist puts into it. The artist's state of mind leads to all the countless little decisions that guide each stroke, pick each color and form each shape. Paintings are excellent time-capsules not to be underestimated for their precision!

But, eh, what do you mean by "divorced", if I may ask?

One other thing, though, when one gets too focused around a specific detail, what gets distorted the most is the artist's perception. For example, it shows very much that you've considered the bounce light, but the way you thought about it was, hmmm....based on a logic you were convinced of. In cases like that, you may have to train your understanding based on more reference. On that subject I don't think such a suggestion is unpleasant in any way, haha ha...ha... ...but really, you could even just study balls and bounce light around them to realize where light would go to and how it would spread so that it keeps proper roundness where it has to be and so on...
Also, in our imagination, we often exaggerate certain phenomena. For example, we push contrasts locally without contemplating the relative contrast elsewhere. A neat little trick is to make another layer, where you only consider direct lighting and ignore any bounce light. Then just fade that layer out a little. It's quite amazing how well that can work.

However, what you've done has style, no matter what!

Wow, I discovered your akt from November, really artistic!

Your last akt is cool (both color versions) but it is not so relaxed like your November painting and it should deserve new layer for the lightning as Taron said.

>>We were almost divorced before our relationship really began.
I have same question as Taron. I understand it like metaphora or am I wrong?

It looks you were in the similar situation during painting process like me with the Raven. I got stucked and couldn´t move. All my enhancements were worse and worse. I am still not satisified with the result at all. You know, you see something in your imagination but it is hard to put it on the paper or monitor. I think the best way is to take a breath, let it be for one day and return back.. In any case don´t use your knife. We have only two ears

Thanks so much for you comments.
OK. First things first.

I made this from reference.Wouldn't be able to do something decent without.

Divorced.
I have a relationship with everything I am doing. I need to love what I am doing. Regardless what stupid project you are working on.
This girl I started a nice little affair with. Liked her from first glimpse.
But she have been more complicated than expected, I really had to fight hardly for her.
No one knows why she had to put her right hand in this crazy pose. Took me ages to get it somehow acceptable.
My "marriage" with her pretty soon got in trouble.

So no worries ol' fellows. I don't had one of this young bunnies hopping in my bed around
Relax, If that were your questions.

Taron, thanks for your useful tips.
So you think it's too much contrast in her?
Something like that? (Just another photoshop layer on top with exclusion and opacity on 25% is doing something like you said....or like I understood what you said)

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But that's enough with her, she is not good enough to spend more time with her
I'll look for another one and do it better from start on

[Taron]

Ah...no, that's not what I mean. It's a bit difficult to explain this without illustrating the challenging issue somehow. What I mean is that in our brains we isolate the area we are concerned with and forget about the rest very easily. That can lead to an almost patch-work like flatness when each piece has a kind of independent contrast. As a first pass that could be ok, but then a second overall pass would have to bind it all together, bring it all back to one common light source, you know.
Imagine you want to paint a pineapple (Annanas in German) and you shade each facet individually, it will end up looking flat as a whole. But if you went over it as if it was just one round object at the end, you would bring light and dimension to the whole and give it back volume and cohesion. Do you know what I mean?
Another way of looking at it is to remind yourself of another phenomenon we are all somewhat familiar with. It has to do with relative brightness/contrast. A white in the dark can be darker than a black in the light. Imagine a white paper in the shadow, being darker than a black book cover in the sunlight. In a way you might want to consider that as you deal with different sections of the body, those more exposed to the light and those less.
Relating it to this specific picture, her right breast goes literally darker than her booty, while that couldn't be further away from the light and much less exposed to any strong bounce light. The breast itself should not have such a dark shading, you know. It also therefore doesn't have a lot of volume, because the majority of its surface is almost without any shading. It may just appear that way, because of the really dark shadows on its rim.
But just think about the pineapple example some more and you'll certainly understand, I'm sure of that! Maybe I'll make an example later on.

Ahh, O.K. got it.
I will check my references more carefully having this in mind.
The original was a playboy style flat lit photo, probably with tons of photoshopping too.

That made the reference already almost to what you described, I give it the rest
OK.Today only 60 minutes from start to end. See you soon.

Ok, took a bit longer.

Some steps:

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Well, I tried to get more into this Ananas thing.....Can't harm to practice more :
("Little" colour correction in photoshop)

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Wow. This result is very good!
Maybe if you reduce the red borders on the right arm (and blur little bit) it should be better for my taste. In every case very good job and thank you for your exaplanation, Knacki!

And thank you Taron for your explanation, very useful!

[Taron]

Hey, see, sheeeesh, already she's got such a nicer volume! VERY nice!
In this one the hands pull a lot of focus, because they have such strong details. Where ever there are contrasty details, the eyes tend to be pulled to there, so that's also something to keep in mind. Sometimes it only has to be one intense knuckle and as a viewer you are compelled to read it.
What you're doing here is really fantastic, Knacki! It's great stuff to learn a whole lot about sensitive aspects of a painting. Fantastic studies to make pretty powerful leaps forward!

You clearly seem to have a strong momentum going! Excellent!