Unfortunately, my sketches tend to be mostly line drawings with very little in the way of anything to actually show volume or turn the form. Sometimes they mislead me into thinking that the possibilities are greater than they are. The sketch is usually just vague enough that my eye tends to gloss over the problem areas and only focus on the parts that I like. That way I'm a genius!
For once I decided to try to make the smart choice, not just let my enthusiasm get the best of me. That's how I end up having an easel full of shit that I inevitably end up smashing to pieces. This time I decided to do some preliminary work so that I could figure some things out BEFORE I started the fucking painting. So I began a black and white figure study right on top of the sketch. Sure, if the study ends up sucking ass I'll have destroyed my nice little sketch, but I'll consider it a sacrifice to the Gods of Retardedness. I am nothing if not their humble servant.
Since this is a quick tonal study and I'm fairly lazy, I elected to make a bunch of crap up instead of finding any actual photo reference that might be useful. I'm sure that I've heard a saying that goes something like "Haste Makes....something" but I couldn't remember the rest of it because I was in too much of a rush to get to work. After some painting I realized my stupidity when the girl's hands I was working on looked like monster hands. And NOT in the good way. Luckily, my friend Milena stopped by and she's not even close to having monster hands.
Reference photo time!
Before you get any ideas, that isn't her body. Just the hands! She's not that kind of girl. I might know those kinds of girls, but apparently she isn't one of them.