Figure Oil Painting

[Josseline Jeria]

Hey everyone,

This is a figure painting I’ve been working on. I’ve finished the main passing. I want to push this further. My experience with painting thus far has been single layered, but I’d like to experiment pushing paintings further.

I would like to work on the proportions, edge control, the portrait, turning forms, adjusting colours, and the background. I feel unsure about the background at the moment – just doesn’t sit well with me.

Feedback on how to develop this painting is much appreciated.

[Eden]

Wow, nice painting! I like the way you used the blue and purple colors in the skin.

You mentioned that you were into body building? I think that’s really cool. Just like Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell. Are they some of your influences? I feel like I can see a little from both the body building influence and the color.

[Josseline Jeria]

Thanks Eden! I find the more I spend time working with a reference, the more I see the colour shifts in the skin. I actually start seeing the skin coloured purple AS purple. It’s strange but interesting. I need to work on using that better though. I haven’t heard of the artists before, but I can absolutely see how you see that – neat! I’ll keep having a look at their work. My first influence was the comic artist Michael Turner. I fell in love with his work on Witchblade, Soulfire and Fathom. I love how he depicted women’s figures and his overall style. I came across his work about 8 years ago, and I still love it.

[Eden]

My first influence was Michael Turner too! I used to read Witchblade and I loved his art! I read Fathom too. I love everything about the early Witchblade comics. It’s sad that such a promising artist left us so early.

I haven’t done much painting and it always amazes me when people manage to get so much color change into the skin, the purples, blues, and yellows. They are always quite surprising to me.

[Josseline Jeria]

Ah that’s so cool! I have the Witchblade origins graphic novel. One of my faves. I think it’s because we are so use to thinking about skin as being “skin-coloured” when in fact there is no set skin colour. I learned a lot about seeing colour in skin during the Colour Bootcamp course on here. Whenever you’re wanting to learn colour theory, that course is the bomb for it.

[Diane Cameron]

Hi Josseline, what draws my eye most is that the ribs on the left just below the breast don’t seem to match up with the armpit above. They should connect with a line if you imagine the rib cage underneath. I’d also expect to see more muscles in the arms so maybe you could add some shading to show that.  That would make your figure look more realistic. I think there may be an issue with the neck if you imagine it as a cylinder that should be coming up towards the head out of the chest cavity. Something about the base of the neck seems a bit off.  Keep painting! I can tell you’re having fun with it.

[Josseline Jeria]

Hi @Diane

Thank you for all your feedback and critique. It has given me things to reflect and work on, thanks.

The rib cage felt off to me as well. I was going by my reference but I’m thinking I need to alter it to make it feel convincing to the audience. The model isn’t extremely muscular and I wanted to stay truer to that, but I do think regardless I need to work on adding more value to better show form and turning the arm, so thank you for mentioning the shading. And yes I can see what you mean by the neck. I hadn’t noticed that so thanks for bringing that to my attention.

I’ve included the reference photo. Do you have any suggestions of how to tackle the neck and rib cage? Thanks again.

[Diane Cameron]

Hi Josseline, wow, you really did a great job on this now that I see the reference! Those things I pointed out are really there in the photo. I think this may be a case of the photo distorting the way we see things and the artist having to compensate for that since the viewer doesn’t see the photo. Joshua talked about that in a critique recently. Maybe someone who knows a lot about bodybuilding would recognize the way the woman is posing and find the things I pointed out normal. Nice painting. Maybe you could call this one done.

[Josseline Jeria]

@DianeCameron Thank you 🙂 Yeah you are right both in the distortion and that the viewer doesn’t see the photo – thanks for mentioning so.

I don’t mind so much nor a big goal for the image to look too close to the reference. I’d much rather the piece that looks convincing to the audience than staying truer to the image. The viewer won’t ever see the image and if they have to rely on it, then you haven’t done a good job as an artist.

You’re right with the bodybuilding audience. This is similiar to a pose the women competitors do on stage, so it’s very particular. But I’d like this image to be open to a wider audience. I’m not sure how to make those areas read better, as I’m in my early days of learning the figure, but I will sit down, study and try solve the problem 🙂 Now that you mention the critique about form Joshua did, I’m going to go back and watch it again. Thanks for pointing me in that direction.

My idea is to bring more of this kind of figure imagery to the art world, one that isn’t excessively exaggerated in the muscular proportions or overly little in body fat, both of which are how muscular women are often depicted in comics and painting. A bit truer to how a major proportion of women who weight train look like.

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by Josseline Jeria.

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