One lump or two?

This is a portrait of Reddit user Fragrance_Ad7220 from a post on /r/CoffeeGoneWild. I loved the play of light and shadow, especially across the big, curved surface of her skin. This is another coffee cup painting, which I have decided will be an ongoing theme for me. I think the juxtaposition of sexuality with the implied comfort of drinking a morning coffee is what catches me.

There were two main challenges in this piece. The unfamiliar perspective made it harder to predict the right shapes. Note that her right leg appears to be raised above the other slightly. It’s tricky stuff. My initial sketch was fine for the top but got more skewed the lower it went. The fuzzy corners of her sweater were particularly undersized.

There were a number of textures that felt important to communicate the spirit of the original. The mottling on the skin of her chest and and the fuzzy sweater look pretty good, but the sewing lines on her stretched top are not very convincing. I keep wondering if I should have added some highlighting onto the surface of the coffee, even though there wasn’t any in the reference. Maybe some Jurassic-Park-style ripples would help sell it.