Sensuality

This is a portrait of Aftyn Rose, focused on her beautiful breasts, as a capstone to my 100 sets of boobs challenge. It took me longer than expected or usual. I make no apologies for that. It was vital to me I get this one right. Not perfect, as I initially thought my goal to be. Nothing is ever perfect, and requiring that is just setting yourself up for failure. But I demanded this painting be the best expression of my current level of ability. No short cuts. No oversights.

The video I’m referencing is important to me. I honestly believe it is the best video the world of ASMR has produced. Aftyn herself is important to me. Even the specific moment I have chosen to paint is important to me. I have a lot invested in this particular work. It needed to be great.

Is it a success? I think so. I think this is a very solid portrait of a beautiful lady having a marvelous time giving herself some loving. I used no cheats in the process — all the colors and lines are guided solely by my own hand and eyes.

I did a rough sketch with a surprising amount of charm. I strayed from it during the painting process more than expected, given how happy I was with the rough. I think the brain must process the image differently when it’s more abstract like this. As I built up the painted layer, different things struck me about the angles and proportions. I hope the changes made it more accurate, but from a high level, both look like the reference.

I didn’t expect this, but because I liked the rough, this piece had an unusually long “despair” phase, when I didn’t believe it was going to come together. After painting over the outline with broad colors, there is a dip in the perceived visual quality. That trough is a motivation killer, which contributed to how long it took to finish the painting.

The process of painting, when it’s going well, is one of making successive refinements to big color shapes. At first, her entire body was a single color. One pass later and I had some rough approximations of facial features, shadow volumes, where her hands would fall across her boobs, indications for the shape of her rib cage and legs. You could see it taking shape, but it still didn’t match the recognizability of the sketch. And while that was going on, some of the sketch’s errors were starting to become clear. Both hands were too small. The curve of the legs and hips was too shallow. Her neck was too short. Each of these revelations required significant surgery to fix. Finishing was a matter of swinging back and forth between further refinements and fixing the basic shapes.

I am proud of this painting. I think it is a very fitting conclusion to the series, and a tribute to the woman who has inspired me so much.

One final note. I have painted a moment from this video before, all the way back in ’21 when I was still using Krita. I continue to be proud of that earlier work, particularly for its bold use of color, but comparing them, the growth in my skill is plain to see. That’s a nice feeling.