From Photo to Art--Dana Dicillo

I used to have a membership to the old Playboy Cyber Club, and met many, many models there.  One was a feisty, petite Italian girl named Dana Dicillo, a Special Editions model who had big aspirations to become the shortest Playmate in history.  Dana was direct, to the point, and just very, very cute.

Being the atypical Playboy model, I thought she would make a perfect subject.  I looked through a lot of her pictorials (harder to get online in those days), and finally found this image in the May/June 2004 Special Editions Lingerie issue, shot by Andrew Goldman.

Dana obviously has a wonderful figure; her petite frame and smaller breasts are so different than most Playboy models.  What drew me in was her dark, expressive eyes.  I felt like she was almost looking through me.

I chose a very, very toothy illustration board for this image, and cut in quarters.   I figured that the rougher surface would challenge me to create more shadows and contrasts, since the reference photo had flat lighting.

Since this was a lingerie issue, she, of course, was shown in various stages of undress in her pictorial.  I frankly wasn't interested in the bra hanging below her breasts in the reference photo; I wanted to make this a full frontal nude.  I loved the up do with her hair, and thought about how interesting that could be in the final drawing.

I did get a chance to send it to Dana after I finished, she wrote back, wow, that looks like me!  I took that as a compliment.

You can see a larger version of the art work here.