Around when I had just turned twenty, my friend Kelly and I were working on becoming better artists, and we would sit together to practice drawing things pretty regularly. We were both pretty quiet, and we were comfortable sitting still together while we worked for a long time. For reference, I am 5’9″, skinny, and Kelly is 5’5″, slim with shoulder-length sandy blonde hair. Some days, we’d draw each other drawing each other, sometimes, we’d model a hand or a foot to improve our skills. We got really good at things like flowers, but our human figures sucked.
Then one day, Kelly asks me, “So…this is kind of awkward, but you know what would really help our anatomy skills?” I kind of had a feeling where this was going, had thought about it myself but didn’t want to ask.
“What’s that?” I asked, playing dumb.
“Nude modeling.” I turned my head to her suddenly, and she blushed and giggled.
“How so?” I asked.
“I’ve tried drawing references from the Internet, but everything just looks flat.”
“Yeah,” I said, “I’ve done the same thing.”
“What would you say to–” she scrunched up her face and blushed a little, “modeling for each other sometime?”