May- Spirit of Spring final

Revised: There weren't drastic enough changes to the in-progress version to warrant a completely new upload, so I've revised this to the finished version. Main I refined the hand and added nipples, and tweaked with his shoulder a bit.

Again for the calendar, which is in the final stages of completion. I need to finish December and then finish the hands in all the pieces, with a few other touch-ups, and I'll be done. Without unforseen setbacks I should have the calendar finished and available Monday or Tuesday.

For May, (my birth month :) ) I didn't want to go with it's holiday since I didn't want to disrespect Memorial Day by making it humorous. Although I did have an idea of a soldier in a garden, presumably after just returning home or seeking a safe haven for a few moments, but it was too serious for the calendar at the time. After I shifted focus a little with some months not going for 'perving-up holiday icons' I felt it was still a little too serious and too complex a painting to finish in the time I had.

So I tried to go for the essence of May: Spring and flowers, 'May Day'. And since it's my month I figured I could go with a little extra fanservice to myself in a long-haired hottie nature spirit wearing next to nothing.

I have the hands to refine (as I left that as the last thing on all the paintings to speed through the final stages in 'hand-mode') and a few touch-ups: nipples and shadows and maybe some blending of background color into the petals to unify the painting.

Apparently I was saving the most troublesome paintings for last as this and January's were a real pain-in-the-... This one most of the trouble was in the flower petals and the out-stretched arm (since I wanted to keep all of the hand in frame and not reduce the figure's size).

Instead of painting the petals by hand within the painting, I painted some templates and loaded them into Painter's image hose brush. But I hated the way the petals looked in the painting. I also painted some flowers and did the same. Not so great when put into the painting either. However, I had the idea of cutting the petals from the flowers I painted and making an image hose pattern with that and with some tweaking was able to get it just about like I wanted. I do wonder if it might have just been quicker to have painted them all in the painting afterall, considering the amount of time wasted on the first two failures, but hey, now I have some flower petals for any other painting I want to use them in, so not a total loss. :)