All art copyright (c) Mike Kloepfer
"The level of achievement that we have at anything is a reflection of how well we were able to focus on it."
-Steve Vai

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Weightless

This one just kinda jumped out at me, and I'm glad it did.
While searching through reference material, I kept coming back to this one time and again. I love the pose. The model is the lovely and remarkable Cordula, photographed by Marcus J. Ranum:
http://mjranum-stock.deviantart.com/art/Cordula-Relaxing-53724215
Then I accidentally rotated the image...and immediately I thought she looked like she was flying, or rather, just hovering in the air, weightless.

I was enjoying myself so much, I stayed up through the night and into the morning.
As I was working, a thought process began:
The gesture is nearly perfect. The most important thing is the space. She needs to be in a different space from the clouds.
"Why?"
It needs to not just look like a picture turned sideways. It has to be convincing...compelling.
"Why? What's the point?"
She needs to look not like she is flying, and not like she is suspended, but floating -weightless - of her own free will and under her own power.
"Why?"
This is about the sensation of weightlessness.
"Why weightlessness?"
It's about the desire to float free from all constraints.
"Why is she floating?"
Because she wants to.
"Why does she want to?"
Because she can...

This went on for hours. It was very interesting. At times I felt like a spectator to my own internal dialogue.

I still have quite a bit of work to do on this, and I'm loving every minute of it. Stay tuned for updates.

3 comments:

Traepischke said...

Reminds me of your idea for the "Coffee Goddess" (demon?) coming in to wake you up.

Truly lovely.

Trapper

Chris Davis said...

Stubmled across your blog and love your art. This is a beautiful piece. I like you figure drawing studies as well. Thank you for posting such outstanding work!

Mikey said...

Thanks Chris!
Long time now see... How the heck have you been?