Dangerous invitation

This is my second fully original painting, and also my second run at this character. I pushed myself into some challenging territory for it. I set out to make a painting that features Aftyn’s Dangerous Succubus on a bed in a space filled with flames, beckoning us to come to her.

I started with a rough pose idea from a drawing by Alex Toth I saw in a video of people flipping through one of his sketchbooks.

I went down half a dozen roads that didn’t work. I kept having to back up, erase a bunch, start over. I did not start off with references — I was just trying to reason out the pose on the page. My knowledge of anatomy is so-so. My ability to visualize perspective is poor. Things just kept not looking right, but I wouldn’t be able to say why.

I started collecting photos for reference to individual aspects. Here’s a thigh in a similar angle. The lighting on this one is about right. Here’s what a ram’s horns look like, or a bat’s wings.

Eventually I became the model. I stripped to the waist and started shooting pictures of myself trying to do the pose. I realized my original vision for it was off-balance, impossible to hold. I made more changes. The right hand needs to be a brace. This leg needs to be angled further over. I found numerous errors in the anatomy as I worked and refined. I remembered about the brachioradialis and the sartorius muscle.

I revised the flames. I revised the wings, a lot. I revised the bedspread many many times. I outright removed a flogger I’d tried to draw from memory — that thing just looked terrible. I tweaked and tuned the lighting and shadows more times than I can count. This was a labor.

But you know what? I like it. It’s not perfect, but it looks good, and I learned a lot doing it. I pushed myself, and the next one will be easier for it. I am proud of this painting.