> > On some of the breast enhancements, like for the middle woman in the sink photo, one goal is obviously to make them symmetrical to the viewer. But if you pause a moment and notice the angle of the woman's shoulders, your eyes compensate and she becomes very lopsided.
>
> What really got me about that photo was that nothing seemed strange until I saw the original. Then I looked again at the retouched version and couldn't stand it. It just looked SO very wrong.
>
> I started thinking about how many "anatomically impossible" (to use Ria's phrase) photos we look at without even realizing that anything is abnormal. It can't help but sink into your brain that at least some people look like this. And that has the potential to be an incredibly dangerous way of thinking, because even if you don't think that you're measuring yourself against the photos, you've come to think that somewhere, somehow, that standard of impossible perfection actually exists.
>
> Gahalyn

I took Life Drawing (for different reasons!) and that helped dispel many of the myths I had come to believe in about an ideal female body. One of our most frequent models (probably 50% of the sessions) was a seriously skinny chick, and even she had a tummy, and it hung down a little when she bent over. And had lines on her torso when she bent in certain ways. And her rear sagged a little. And her breasts were as tiny as the rest of her.

Another nice thing about Life Drawing is you stop seeing the body as an icon (which is exactly what "retouching artists" are trying to _create_) and start seeing it as a series of lines and shapes imposed over one another. You aren't thinking "OK, the abdomen stops here and the thigh starts here, and this is how it should look" -- if you think that way, you get in major trouble, and your drawing shows it! :) You have to start just seeing simple shapes.

You would think fat didn't exist if you tried to draw ideals based on what you see in magazines etc. It was refreshing to get to see _real people_ and observe and visually record how real bodies actually pose.

I'd really highly recommend a life drawing class at your local college should you ever get the opportunity to take it. Just make sure you draw from a live model, and not from statues, like I heard one nearby college did :)

Ri "You get over the 'omg nekkid' thing after about ten seconds, when you realize you have to start drawing" a