
You’ve felt it before.
That pull toward something you can’t quite name when anyone asks. The thing that makes your usual weekend plans feel like you’re watching yourself go through motions someone else choreographed.
Between 2015 and 2019, a small group of women kept coming back to my studio in northeast Nebraska. Weekly, sometimes more. They weren’t building modeling portfolios. Money wasn’t the draw—most sessions paid nothing or close to it.
They kept showing up because the work itself became necessary to them. The kind of necessary that’s difficult to explain to people who haven’t felt it.
COVID scattered everyone. I’ve spent the years since thinking about what made that group work. What made women protect time for these sessions the way you protect time for things that feed something the rest of your life doesn’t reach.
I’m rebuilding it now.
What this is
Nude figure photography that becomes source material for finished paintings. Classical tradition—Mortensen, Weston—but the final work combines photography with digital painting and 3D rendering.
The finished pieces feel borrowed from 1880. Pre-Raphaelite aesthetic, neoclassical composition. Work that ends up in galleries where people stop and actually stare instead of glancing and moving on.
What you need to know upfront:
You receive a percentage when pieces sell. That could be months out. Could be years. If you need income in any immediate sense, this won’t work for you.
Sessions are fully nude from the beginning. The first session tests whether you actually enjoy this—some women realize within twenty minutes it’s not for them, others are scheduling the next session before they leave.
If thinking about being nude for the first session makes you curious and excited, you already know something about yourself. If it creates anxiety, you know something different. Either way, you know.
What Actually Happens
The Sessions
60-90 minutes. Sometimes I’m working with period costume elements, props, concepts I’m developing. Always classical figure work that becomes raw material for painted pieces.
The women who kept returning didn’t come back for content or validation.
They came back because once this clicks, other plans start losing. Working through poses. The physical demand of holding still. Seeing raw captures. Eventually watching yourself become part of finished artwork that hangs somewhere real.
The collaboration becomes the point. Not the output. The actual work of it.
What this isn’t:
Easy material for your feed. Surface-level portfolio building. Quick turnaround on payment.
What this might be:
If you’re genuinely curious what it feels like to be the subject of actual artwork—the kind that outlasts the scroll and the algorithm and still exists when platforms die—then this might be exactly what you’ve been looking for without knowing how to name it.
You Already Know If This Is You
If you’re still reading, something here is pulling at you. That pull is information.
Financial stability matters here.
Work sells eventually, but payment could be months or years away. This only works if you’re doing it because the work itself matters to you, not because you need money.
The creative obsession pattern.
You already recognize this in yourself if it applies.
The theater person who can’t stop running scenes in their head during other conversations. The climber who thinks about beta in the shower. The dancer who hears counts in grocery store music.
If you’ve never gotten that way about something creative—where it becomes non-negotiable in your schedule, where you protect time for it against everything else trying to claim that time—this probably won’t click the way it needs to.
The women who stayed became different to the people around them. Not because they told everyone what they were doing. Because they had something they protected. Something that mattered in a way their friends didn’t quite understand. Most people won’t understand why you’re doing this. You’ll stop trying to explain. That gap between you and them is part of it.
That difference showed.
A specific kind of dissatisfaction.
If the same rotation of parties and bars and surface-level socializing every weekend actually satisfies what you’re looking for, you won’t find this intense enough to matter.
But if you’ve spent time at those things feeling like you’re supposed to be having more fun than you are—feeling like there’s supposed to be something else, something you can’t quite articulate—then maybe this is it.
About comfort and curiosity.
The work requires immediate physical comfort. If thinking about being nude for a session makes you curious and excited rather than nervous and hesitant, that’s a good signal.
If it creates anxiety or makes you want to work up to it gradually, this won’t work. Whether you apply anyway tells you everything you need to know.
No prior modeling experience required. Physical confidence and genuine curiosity matter more than whether you’ve done this before. Most women who stuck around long-term had never modeled before walking into their first session.
About The Artist
I’m Ace von Alling. I’ve been shooting for 25+ years.
Started in New York fashion, eventually moved toward fine art figure work because the commercial work meant creating images designed to be forgotten once they’d done their job. Beautiful images that didn’t mean anything to anyone a week later.
Current work sits in Pre-Raphaelite and neoclassical tradition. Photography gets combined with 3D rendering and digital painting to create finished pieces that feel like they belong in another century.
Work shows in galleries and ends up in private collections.
What actually matters to me is whether the models themselves feel proud of the finished pieces. Whether they want to show people. Whether it meant something beyond the session itself.
Apply
Application takes about 15 minutes.
You’ll answer questions about your creative background, your relationship with nudity, your financial situation, what specifically draws you to this kind of work.
If the fit is real, you’ll hear from me within a week. If you’re reading this and feeling something shift, you already know what happens next, and understand why people who should have done this don’t forget that they didn’t.
