“Boobie Wednesday” (or #boobiewed and the lesser used #boobiewednesday, which are the Twitter hashtags) is a theme started by two women on Twitter who wanted to do something to promote Breast Cancer Awareness. Every Wednesday, there’s an increasing number of people who change their Twitter icon to something breast/cleavage-related for the day. Additionally, a number of them submit photos for the blog, in support of cause.

You can find their blog and site-affiliated Twitter here:

http://boobiewednesday.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/boobiewed

FYI: While my picture below is safe for work, some images/photos that go onto the blog are NSFW, as they may contain nipples. So, if you work in a strict environment, you might want to look at the site at home.

I wanted to find a way to contribute (after all, who doesn’t like breasts?), and decided to do a piece of artwork in support of it the week of Halloween, gratis. The idea came into play that Tuesday, and I bounced it off of one of the two women who started Boobie Wednesday. She told me to go for it. In turn, I opted to do the whole of it on Wednesday.

As I’d just started playing with Manga Studio, I thought this would be a good exercise in learning the software a bit more. So, I did the initial render, up through colors under the linework, and exported it to a Photoshop format. As I’d saved it that way, I didn’t bother with saving it in the default Manga Studio format, and closed out the program. Little did I know that it was not a .PSD format, which would bite me in the ass in short order. I opened up Photoshop, and looked for the .PSD file, only to not see it. So I looked for all formats, and found that it had saved as a bitmap. While a minor nuisance, it wasn’t a huge deal, right? Wrong. I opened it up, and descended immediately into gratuitious use of the word “FUCK“. What happened?

The image had saved with all of the layers merged. In monochrome. Or, to put it more bluntly– all I had to show for that first 1.5 hours of work was a black silhouette on a white background. What lesson was hammered into my head? Make sure you have a viable copy of the file saved before you close the program out. Yeah, I won’t be doing that again anytime soon.

I walked away from the computer (so as to not give into the urge to punch a hole in the monitor). Came back. Started over from scratch in Manga Studio again.

(Click for larger version.)

So I recreated the original image to the best of my ability.

1) On the base layer, I used the pen tool to rough in the image with the default (I’m assuming non-photo) blue color for said layer.

2) Once I got to that point, I created a new layer, using the same pen tool, but with black, and did the inked linework.

I found the “export to another application” option or some such, and copied it to the clipboard. Opened PS, created a new document, and pasted the image into it. Only then did I go back to MS, save it to the default format, and close the program out. Having discovered that it saved as an opaque B&W layer (I’ve yet to figure out how to copy a layer just as linework, or for that matter, a multi-layered file), I used the magic wand tool, clicked on one of the black line segments, and then picked similar on the selection menu. This selected all of the linework. I then inverted the selection, and deleted everything else (the white).

3) Save the image, ported it to ArtRage, and painted in the underlayer of color. Did tweaks, played with layers, etc., until I got to the point that I was good with the image for details, textures, and such in PS.

4) Heavy layer creation/manipulation, filtering, opacity work. Integrated rough necklace idea. Addition of texturing via both photo and brush usage. Brought in a couple of photo overlay components on both subtle (skin/face/hair) and not-so-subtle (necklace/corset texture and clasps). More filtering and opacity work. Added more depth to the form via filters and erasing.

5) It was almost midnight, and I was pushing time, so I took a shortcut with the background. Found brick photo I liked. Altered it. Did a few layers of filtering with it. Then I did the shadows and lighting for all of it.

For what was ultimately 8ish hours of time from start to finish, I was happy with it.

What am I not happy with? I’m an artist, I’m my own worst critic, so I’m not happy with a lot of things. ;) I’d have liked the sleeves to have been more in line with the rest. I missed fixing a couple filter-related errors with the light and shadow on the face. While the brick wall works with the picture, I don’t like that I took such an overt shortcut to put it in there, but at the same time, it’s far better than a blank white background with this piece.

I’ve given them consent to utilize the image in any capacity, so long as it’s for the purpose of promoting Breast Cancer Awareness (this includes promotion of the blog and Twitter themes, as they were created for the same purpose). As such, they’re using it on a T-shirt, all the profits of which will go toward the cause.

For those interested, or simply curious, you can order it here, courtesy of the girls who founded Boobie Wednesday.

All proceeds go toward National Breast Cancer Foundation (it’s my understanding that there are other options for printing, for those who may wish a v-neck style shirt instead).

As a bonus, I’m posting the linework and giving permission for anyone to color said line work. Feel free to email me the colored pictures, I’d love to see what others do with it, and will post a compilation of them at a later date.

Thanks for reading. I hope this was informative.