Vanessa Lake and Tentacle - Walkthrough

-By Serge Birault

Here's a caricature of the californian model, Vanessa Lake. I did this picture last year, after several tests. I just wanted to do a picture full of pink.



Vanessa is a great model, she's got a very interesting face. I used several photo references for her face. Here's a list of links:



http://www.modelmayhem.com/1135277

http://ispyvanessalake.com/

http://vanessalake.deviantart.com/

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Vanessa-Lake/156046511100024

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Well, yes, I know, all this lines mean nothing. In fact, I added the composition over the sketch ... :D



Seriously, if you work with a computer, don't think too much about "lines" (curves are far more important if you paint pin ups). You can easily change your composition, change scales and ratio, erase and retry... Composition is more about training than rules.



The final picture is an A3 format, 300 dpi.

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First, as usual, I choosed my background color. This pink color was my background tone and my ambiant light. For the skin, I started with a swath of classical flesh color. For all the gradients, I used the airbrush ( the soft round brush) with very low opacity.



Once again, the more difficult part was to find the good contrast. Once again, the skin looks very plastic (as all the parts of this picture). Once again, I had to cheat a little bit with the volumes...

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The hair were an interestig part to paint. Indeed, I'm still trying to find a way to do "cartoon" hair. My good friend David "Loopydave" Dunstan provided me good inspirations.



I added a little bit of pink retro light on the edges. I think it works well and the hair look more plastic that way.

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I did the tattoo on the shoulder with a lot of different layers. It would be too long to explain here but I did a small tutorial in order to paint tattoos on my FB page HERE



It's the real tatto of Vanessa, she provided me references. White latex is not easy to do, it's very difficult to fnd the good contrast. I finally changed my mind for her left hand. Yes, you have have the right to change your mind whenever you want with softwares :p

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The pink tentacle has to be a little bit transparent and very reflective (like the lollipop). Here's the method above.

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I did very few adjustments on this picture :  a little bit of contrast, a little bit of yellow and a very soft gradient on the background. I can't remember how much time I spent of this one, but less than 20 hours.



It seems Vanessa liked it a lot ... Job done :)