Twisted Sister

Colourful tattoos, translucent skin and lace lingerie: Rebeca Puebla’s The Butcher’s Bride is a celebration of textures…

Rebeca Puebla discovered the world of fetish and BDSM around 2007, and soon afterwards started her series of highly striking images, Twisted Dolls. “It was a challenge because until then my work was quite realistic,” she says, “so I began to mix cartoon and realism. And I thought that making politically incorrect dolls in latex and impossible corsets look elegant was something new.”

Elegant transgression

1 I love to make provocative images with strong themes, but I don’t like to do typical exaggerated females (big chest, skimpy clothing). I love ambiguity and contradiction, such as a beautiful corset that’s impossibly restrictive. This idea might seem a bit seedy to some, so my challenge is to make the final result transgressive yet visually elegant.

Modelling the figure

2 Normally I make a base in 3ds Max and then use ZBrush for applying details. However, for this image I do more of the modelling in ZBrush, and leave a highly polished and smooth surface without too much detail, ready for the lace layer.

Tattoo you

4 I spend a lot of effort getting the tattoos right. They’re important to the character’s story and must be dynamic, yet soft at the same time.

Lace lingerie

5 For the scene’s lighting I try different options, finally choosing one that creates the most contrast. Between the lace, laddered stockings and gold ribbon, there’s a lot of texture to pick out.

Final curtain

6 Towards the end of my process I normally tweak the brightness, contrast and colour in Photoshop because I don’t usually achieve the right result using 3D software alone.