Feeling stumped with commission work...Help please

[Karine Beaumier]

Hi,

I have been here on and off. It's good to be back

Situation- I started a commercial commission piece a while back and need to make a change after the artwork was finished.

Long story short: My client is happy with the rest of the art but we ended up including her (I usually don't do portrait) in the artwork and and she asked me if I can make her look thinner now that everything is almost done. She is actually thinner than the character- at this point all the other structures are built on her pose so it is very tricky as I don't have time to start over (I create traditional then mix it with digital). I have tried many things already and I don't seem to quite nail it without having to go back to the hand made drawing...!

The ideal would be to do minor changes to the jaw line and the neck (awckward look when I do it so far) I can adjust the necklace too (smaller), shoulder and the eye position/size if needed with photoshop. Learning from this, I will make sure my character structure is stronger next time and double check twice with the client before moving forward (The draft was approved- but definitely double checking things can help save time ha!)

Anyhow, here is the the drawing and the photo of her. Sorry for all the blur-iness. As this is not published yet, I can only show a little. If anyone feels inspired, I would love to see the solution you come up with. That would help huge!! I am already working for free at this point as this took much longer than originally quoted. (not the client fault so I am not billing the extra time)

P.S: Her head angle is looking up slightly higher than on the photo. I also changed the clothes a little bit as it did not have to be exactly the same. The hair are also longer for the art concept/purpose.

Thank you so much!!!!!!!!!!

[Coreyartus]

@Karine-Beaumier I threw this into Procreate on my iPad and used the Liquefy tool to pinch in the face, and push the sides of the shawl closer together.

The angle of the line of the shawl as it goes over her shoulder is too wide. Pushing them back toward the middle makes her body seem thinner instead of angling outward.

The scale of the face is to big and broad. Shrinking it but retaining the fullness of her hair (and thus not modifying the silhouette and any of the rendering around her figure) makes her seem slimmer.

You should be able to do all of this in Photoshop using the Warp tools and Liquefy tools without having to redraw anything...

[Karine Beaumier]

@gavpartridge no worries, it was deleted already when I got here. Thanks!

[Karine Beaumier]

@Coreyartus I see what you mean, thank you so much!! For both the feedback and the taking the time to modify the drawing to show what it would look like. I will tackle these points in photoshop now. I have seen this image for weeks- a fresh outlook helps and is appreciated. Let's see now what happens!

[carlianne]

@Karine-Beaumier I really like what @Coreyartus did in the paint over and I would just add that the shirt is also making her look larger because if the width of the neckline on it. If you give it a smaller v shape I think it'll also thin her out. Good luck!

[Dima Eichhorn]

@Coreyartus Just move all face features (eyes, nose, mouth)toward the chin and probably the it will better.

[Karine Beaumier]

@carlianne and @Dima-Eichhorn thank you! I started last week with the new fixes and giving it another go today, I can share the results when done. The version published will probably display only half of her though - taking that in consideration when choosing the shapes...ha! Back to work

[Karine Beaumier]

Here is the final look for those interested to see (only a sneak peek has the album art has not been released yet) Finally having procreate has helped a lot with changing the lines- versus re-drawing everything manually each time. Gamechanger. It was big lesson (I thought I knew lol) To really have a strong structure before going forward. And to save so MUCH time (got it the hard way this time) There are things I would change starting from the start but the client was really happy with the results. I started using the tips from @Will-Terry class, Mixed media Watercolor & Digital which has been awesome ( yay color dodge and separating watercolor from background!! Thank you) @Coreyartus

[Coreyartus]

Lovely piece!!! Congrats!

[Karine Beaumier]

@Coreyartus Cheers!

[carlianne]

turned out great! love it!

[sandra_jessop]

Very nice!

[Karine Beaumier]

Thank you @carlianne and @sandra_jessop ! I think I had saved over 50 different versions... lol Feels good to have it done

[Neha Rawat]

Very cool! Congratulations!

[Nyrryl Cadiz]

@Karine-Beaumier BEAUTIFUL!

[Carolyn Williams]

What a beautiful finished piece. Love the concept, style, and lighting. Please post the full image when you can.

[Karine Beaumier]

Thank you so much @Neha-Rawat @Nyrryl-Cadiz and @Carolyn-Williams ! I might be a couple of months before it comes out but will do as soon as I can