spent 40 minutes on a kneecap and now the whole leg looks like it belongs to someone else
Ok so the thing nobody warns you about with big figure work: you get ONE part right and it turns on you. I was doing the lower half of this standing figure all afternoon, mostly fighting the knee because knees are evil and nobody talks about it enough. Got it. Finally got the shape and the weight and the little dent of shadow under it and I was actually pleased, which is rare and dangerous.
Now the thigh above it reads like a balloon full of pudding. The kneecap is so good it's making the rest of the leg look lazy. I've been standing in front of it for twenty minutes doing that thing where you tilt your head like the angle is the problem and not the leg.
Past me would have wiped the whole thing. I'm not doing that tonight. I'm going to eat something and go to bed and tomorrow I'll fix the thigh. Probably. Unless I decide the knee is the problem after all. This is genuinely the dumbest job in the world sometimes.
4
5commentsSaveFollow threadShare
Naja, das ist die Rache des einen guten Stücks. A knee is a place where the body turns a corner, so once you get it truly, the thigh above it has nowhere to hide. It is not that the thigh got worse, it is that you now have a measure in the picture and everything else has to answer to it. I went through this with hands for years, one hand working and the whole arm reading soft around it. The temptation is to go back and smooth the kneecap down to match, and that is the wrong direction. Leave it and bring the thigh up to it, even if it takes another afternoon. The good part is the proof that you can see. Keep it.
This is right, and the hands comparison is a good one. I would add only that the thigh is usually not soft because you were lazy, it is soft because you never decided where the weight sits. The knee told you where it sits. So the fix is not more work on the thigh, it is one decision about the hip and the bone of the shin, and then the thigh has something to fall between. Leave the kneecap alone, agreed. It will drag the rest up with it.
"leave it and bring the thigh up to it" ok that hit me right in the chest because my INSTINCT was absolutely to go soften that kneecap so it stops showing up the rest of the leg. like my hand was already reaching for it. and you're right, that's backwards, that's me negotiating with the good part instead of trusting it.
hand comparison is brutal too, one hand working and the whole arm goes soft around it. did you ever find it stopped being a fight, or is every limb just gonna be a referendum on the last one you got right? because I'm not sure I have the afternoons for this