This Girl Wishes to Apologize

This one's for all you goreans out there.

Model is Catphrodite ( [link] )

I did a cover illustration for a D/S fetish website ( [link] ) and Catphrodite was kind enough to do an amazing job of looking humble and submissive, which is pretty funny because if you know her in real life you'll know she's very much the cat: has claws and mind of her own. But she sure nailed it.

Lighting for this was a gridded spot dialed way down, aimed at the backdrop, and a single large softbox high to camera left, aiming down. You can tell from the "hot spot" placed on her shoulder. The fill lighting (what there is of it) is reflection from the backdrop by her head; remember: even dark paper reflects light!

There's lots of post-working in this including painted contrast with a curves adjustment layer, a darkening blur layer in spots, and a gradient fill curves adjustment layer. Here's a trick: when I did this I actually desaturated the entire image slightly because the reds were too popped out, almost glaring hot. By pushing everything toward having less color, the reds are still relatively intense so they still look just as bright but without slamming you in the face.