[nsfw] nude oil painting process, and talking about water mixable oil paint

this is the first post for the 'exxxtras' tier, where i intend to go more in depth into the process of making things! feel free to skim and just look at the pictures if every little detail isn't of interest. 

here's a write up of the process for making this oil painting. i tried to explain the basics, if oil paint is something you’re not familiar with, but i had to keep the explanations relatively short or this would become ridiculously lengthy, heh.

initial study in sketchbook. this helps me find shadow and light, and the edge between, and any nice gradients that i can take advantage of in the reference pictures. i used multiple pictures to get a pose i liked. (i literally spent HOURS looking for references for this because most references on the internet were *too* lewd or just too boring.)

pencil on wooden board. i kept it small to finish quickly. i think it's just over a4 size. (i'd measure but i don't own it anymore) it's really hard to draw on board so my initial sketch was very useful. here i change some features to be more stylised.

the board is gesso’d before starting, meaning i painted a few layers of gesso onto it. this primes the board. it’s function is to stop oil from the paints leeching into the wood and drying the painting faster, and over time causing the paint to possibly crumble off. it also gives the board texture, and gives you a white background.

beginning to block in, starting with shadows for each area. once the shadows are in, i block in the highlight. then it's a matter of blending the edge either very little for a hard edge, or putting lots of midtones in to get a very soft edge. the more angled anatomical features need hard edges, things like knees and elbows, and the soft planes of the stomach need lots of midtones. in some areas, there's a grey reflected light from below, where light bounces from the blanket back onto the skin. wherever the light bounces onto *skin* and back, the reflected light is reddish (like the underarm), because skin is reddish hued, and absorbs blue light.

next time i do a better oil painting i’ll properly write up how i mix colours. i think learning to mix real paint has a hugely positive impact on your ability to colour digitally.

finished skin. i've sketched in some background elements. i had plans for SO much more in the background but my paints were being a nightmare and i phoned it in. (i'll elaborate in a minute) in the end i very loosely painted some fabric draping over a backdrop.

final painting

so it's rare i do anything in oil these days because i don't have a studio space. i really only like to work with solvents as a medium, which despite sometimes coming advertised as less toxic, are still toxic, and do a brilliant job of killing braincells when i use it in my totally not-ventilated apartment. i *need* those braincells... drugs and breathing in turps for years probably left me with very few, and you need to cling onto what you have. i love using oil, i painted traditionally a lot before i ever touched digital art-- SO, this time to avoid breathing in any toxic chemicals, i thought i'd try these newfangled water mixable oils. the traditionalist in me was extremely suspicious. my verdict: thanks, i hate it.

maybe water mixable oils could work for other people, but i felt they just mixed terribly, the colour didn't dilute well, and i couldn't layer them at all without it turning goopy. it was just a really finicky process, not smooth and satisfying like it normally is painting with oil. i used linseed oil as a medium which did far better than water (these... aren't really water 'mixable' for painting), but it wasn't enough and the process left me frustrated and disappointed with the painting. oh well. the lesson? i need to find a well ventilated space to actually use my lovely toxic turpentine. (it smells soooo good but hurty my head) maybe i just had crappy quality paint, and i needed to spend more to get a better experience.

this painting would also probably have a different process if i had used turpentine to dilute paint. to sum it up: oil paint has a general rule; “thin to fat”. usually you don’t work with pure oil paint, you use something called a “medium” to dilute it. thin means diluted with solvent and fat means added oily medium (or another slow drying medium). solvents dry faster, oil mediums dry slower. you need to work with thinner, faster drying paint in the base layers, and “fatter” strokes of slow drying paint in the outer layer. this is because if you have fast drying over slow drying, the painting can crack and look bad. it’s also just impractical.

i normally use solvent to thin down the paint in the initial layers, stretching the paint much further and working faster. the final layers correct those under-paintings, and it’s easy to paint over them because the paint is already dry. with these water mixable oils, my initial paint layer had to be my final layer, so i had to do it all right the first time. my first layer was already “fat”, in that it was oily and going to dry slowly.

anyway. i painted this for my mum as a birthday gift, lol. (she requested a nude lady, i'm not just being a freak.) despite being somewhat of a creative failure, i guess it could have gone worse. i actually like how it looked best when i hadn't painted in the background. in retrospect i think i should have just painted the background one colour and made it like... pop art or something.

-D