My first project here

This is a good example of the sort of distance I'm talking about.

Thanks for taking the time to look out a pic, but if you look at the direction of the pose her head is arched away from the breast. Imagine if she dipped her head to look between her arms, her chin would then be maybe half a head-length. Does that make sense?

Yep. But I don't think it would make as much difference to the proportions as it has.

Maybe it's because when we (guys) draw girls, we can't help but make them with perky or massive breasts. I think that they are too perky in the painting and thus too high.

The nipple should be a full head's distance from her chin I reckon.

But I might be wrong. Let's see what other folk think.

Lol, I never draw massive breasts.

So I don't think I'll do much more tonight, getting tired and my night-shift starts at 23:00.
Here's what I have so far:



Anyone know any good tutorials on painting surf?

I can't stop!

Found a bug banj, if you try to attach a file with the same name it reverts to the previous filename's image. So I posted Mermaid WIP, then tried to post an updated version with the same filename, however it showed the original image twice instead. Does that make sense?

It's a really abrupt transition from curvy buttocks to fish tail in this view. I would try and tweak that a bit, maybe have some of tail visible between her lower body and arms, or more of it sweeping behind her?

Hi Stuart:
Looking really good so far, but I think there are a few issues you might want to resolve before getting into the next stage.
I see what Dom means about the breasts appearing a bit too high, but her chin is down, so maybe not a full head in this case? But I keep thinking that the placement of the spine is knocking things out of whack. I think if you correct the placement of the spine, it'll give the body much more form. I'd push that line closer to the far shoulder (her left).



I'd also have a think about the composition. The horizon line cuts the image in two equal halves, which isn't optimal. The shape of the wave doesn't do much either -- it's almost straight. A more exaggerated curve on the wave would add some flow to the composition.
Finally, she is sort of low in the frame, so unless you're really going to make the image about the seascape with a mermaid accent, you might want to raise her a bit more.
Simpler option for the composition in general is to just crop out half of the sky!
I hope some of this is useful! I'm looking forward to seeing more. It's a really good start despite these little nitpicks.

I agree with everybody else about the breast placement and other suggestions. Right now her breast, look stiff and weightless, like there not being affected by gravity. The placement will be different depending on the pose and perspective, as well as the size of the breast. It doesn't have to be 100% accurate, as my sketch isn't, but you want to give them a sense of weight. As for the rest of the anatomy, the line that you have connecting the upper rear and hips are overlapped the wrong way. The way that I interpreted your pose, the back and hips should be in front of the rear. Also, because of the pose, you wouldn't see her butt crack that much , but since you're making her a mermaid it doesn't really matter anyway. For the face, depending on how much you are going to turn it, the eye would be closer to the edge and you probably wouldn't see much of her nose, if at all, because of the way the body is angled. Also you wouldn't see her lips, but all of this depends on how much you are going to turn her head.



As far as the composition, I would crop it to focus more on the mermaid. Unless you had planned on painting something else in that space, but I believe that would take away from her presence. For the wave, it would probably look better if you made it smaller so it doesn't look like it would almost push her over. I think it would complement her pose more.

Hope this helps. Good luck