Last week was all faces, and I wasn’t happy with any of them, but I liked at least a little about each. My son’s picks were tied between these two: the anxious elf, and Selma from Black Circle (a Swedish horror film I really, really liked)
In both cases, I agree with him that I captured and clearly communicated the emotion—but he didn’t have the advantage of seeing the reference images. My Selma is too long-faced, relative to the screencap from the film, and looks a good deal older than the model. Meanwhile, I muffed the hair on my elf pretty badly, not really at all capturing the cosplayers almost quasi-bouffant situation. Also, she’s so stuff across the shoulders. The model had tension in her right shoulder–it was how she was holding her weight in her seated position–but she wasn’t rigged like I drew.
This, of course, invites the question of what I think I’m actually trying to do; if I want a photo-perfect rendition, why not just show you the photo instead of the sketch?
I think my pick for last week is this guy:
There is a lot wrong here—honestly, his open right eye is sorta mad whack, right?—but what’s right is the squinch across the bridge of his nose, and the way that sneer pulled his nose into this asymmetrical pillar. I’m also pretty happy with the mouth and lips. This was my third or fourth shot it capturing this guy’s gesture, and also his age. Young faces are really hard, because you have to balance putting down enough graphite to communicate the shape and shadow without putting down so many that you begin to communicate rough skin, crows feet, and all the door prizes that come with surviving past 30.
Everything in this life is about telling enough, but not too much.