As many of you may know, I spend a good amount of my time Holding Very Still For Strangers. aka figure modeling for various art groups (mostly) in Los Angeles! As I've been taking some time off from travel during this Holiday aka Festively-Plump-Jin Season, I've had the pleasure of posing my little butt off at least three times a week at different groups all over this Damn City. It's a blast!
One of my favorite artists here in LA I met two years ago at my first Dr. Sketchy's event, and I have since had the pleasure of posing for the talented pencils of Nikolai Drjuchin on a number of occasions.
Nikolai is a total dear and very committed to his talents. After some.. gentle .. email harassment *cough cough,* he sent me a number of sketches of yours truly from a recent, costumed event. They're all just SO DAMN GOOD that it would be unnecessarily cruel of me to not share ALL of them..
Be sure to check out Nikolai's work on tumblr and/or instagram, it's pretty awesome shizz. I actually have four of his orginal arts in my home/studio here in Hollywood; Two of me, two of my roommate Xine, a house warming gift from the artist given to us at our first 'Betches of Normandie' figure drawing event.
Enjoy!
Figure posing is a whole different beast than the photo shoot modeling that consumed a good 70% of this past year for me. It's less about what your 'Good Side' is, and more about what Side is Good to challenge the artists? Oh, and did I mention the Very Still part? That's probably up there priority-wise in figure modeling.
It's definitely a unique mental and physical challenge - when was the last time you sat or stood perfectly still for 25 minutes straight? and then did it repeatedly for three hours? now do it naked and/or in heels and on a stage. and you're hungry and/or sweaty and/or gassy and everyone is looking at you and that itch on your nose has made it's way all the way to being an itch on your ass cheek and you've only got 17 more minutes to go propped up on your already dead arms...
i genuinely enjoy it.
this is my meditation. I never go 30 seconds without checking my phone when not posing. I hate 'wasted time' though, so sitting quiet and still is kind of like my antithesis in life. To pass the time, I spend my collective hours of Very Still-ness thinking of various inventions I need to get funded, mentally watching movies and my favorite Rick & Morty episodes, and, of course, learning to move things with my mind. I'm getting pretty good at it, but I haven't learned how to use my power not for evil just yet, so it makes practicing difficult.
No matter what mood I'm in before posing, I never leave a figure modeling session without feeling reinvigorated, and generally much lighter, although that might just be due to the lack of blood to my limbs. The best part of course is always seeing the resulting art.
My fav is when I accidentally get stuck in an awkward, pretzel-pose, and the artist still makes me look like friggen Jessica Rabbit. The blonde version.
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Special thanks to my gurl Nymph Gwendolyn Jane for the behind the scenes photos and all her help in helping me be a functioning adult and babe basically.