Hey, Gnarly, long time no see! Where you been at? 
The Popeye guy is mugging - pulling a face. Trying to look like Popeye, meerschaum pipe and all. I bet when he relaxes his face and puts his teeth back in he looks quite normal.
Obviously we look longer at his face, freakishness mesmerizes. Hence rubber-necking at car accidents. Doesn’t mean I want to paint that face, or buy a painting with it on.
This is actually a very important and fascinating topic.
There will be times when you depict a person in your artwork that’s not “average” in terms of anatomy, proportions…etc, and you will be faced with the critical decisions you have to make. Do you soften those differences so that the person doesn’t look “wrong” to your audience? Do you stick to your guns because that’s exactly how the person really looks?
If I had to face this problem, I think I would stick to my guns, but I’ll add an explanation as to why the person looks “off.” But if I was showing the work in a fashion that no text explanations can be shown, I’ll probably do it the other way. It’s a compromise, but I think as long as you convey the overall message of your piece effectively, it should be ok.
One of my old art teachers had a related problem with a portrait he was comissioned to do…
an old rich lady hired him to paint a portrait of her and her dog. When my teacher met her he saw she was obviously very old and very wrinkled. He had her sit and he tried to light her face, but no matter what he did the wrinkles were very aparent. So he was in this delema… Should he paint her as he see’s her? an 80 yr old woman? at the risk of her being angry he made her look so old? or make her look younger? at the risk of loosing the job because it didnt realy look like her any more?
so he decided to keep the wrinkles, but but do it in a way that wasnt as ‘harsh’ as reality. Instead of defining the wrinkles with the shadows they made, he defined them only by the highlights they picked up. This way she looked her age, but didnt look ‘ugly’.
personaly i love paintings of old peoples chizzled faces. I cant wait to do self portraits at 80.
The point of this thread isn’t who you’d prefer to talk to but about ‘different’ faces in art. I think a pic with the left hand guy would be more interesting to look at. I’m definitely not saying I would marry him. (Nor the guy on the right, but the guy on the left even less) You can’t say that his face isn’t intriguing though. CodeNothing brought up a valid point- how do you paint someone who’s clearly not amazingly beautiful? Do you emphasise that or not? Wrinkles are one thing, but what if the person has a very, very large nose or something?
One idea I have is – you could ask the person to sketch a quick picture of themselves. If they overexaggerate the nose, make it look normal. If they make it look normal, make it look slightly smaller and so on…after all, the commission has to please the client.
nah, there’s no such thing as normal in art. People arent going for normal anymore, it’s all about amazing. Personally, the dude on the left definetly has more potential for art creation, because i get a lot of ideas when i see his face. If Your amending his face because you want to emphasize your own personal view on how you percieve his image, thats your perogitive. It’s also not wrong to choose the man on the right, if forced to choose. The tastes of all artists are unique.
People are working on the assumption that all faces are basically identical but with different proportions. As far as I know, this isn’t actually the case. Sure, we all have the same muscles but we don’t just see muscles… that would be creepy.
For instance, the brow is a very importand region. Some people have a prominent brow ridge(bone) and prominent orbitals (muscles) but these can relate in diffferent ways. They might have a high (virtically) ridge but the orbital might be lower. This creates a vally between the two. For other people, the orbital sits right on top of the ridge, but maybe a it will move, creating a vally, when the person frowns.
Another example is the one that I mentioned in the first post. There are creases and folds in skin - particularly around the eyes which have a genetic basis. We can agree on what is normal but Chinese people may disagree. There are differences that go beyond mere proportion.
Also, there are creases that appear in some faces but not others. Dimples are an example of ths. Some people have huge dimples even when they grimace, whilst others never get them no matter how much they smile.
Another example is sunken eyes. I remember a guy once told me that I had made a mistake in painting large depressions over a persons eyes. You can see him here:
But for me, those depressions were a part of the painting. I wanted to give the impression that he was a drug taker. People who take drugs sometimes end up with fast metabalisms. When a person has a fast metabalism, they burn lots of the fat that isn’t supposed to get burned - like behind the eyes. This leads to the eyes becoming sunken and this in turn leads to the creation of creases above the eyes which are otherwise not there at all.
So for me, there is no standard face. Some faces have features that others just don’t have - like Norway has Fjords and Irland has the Giants Causeway. It is NOT just a matter of changing proportions.
I am sure that people have done some in-depth studies on this stuff but it looks like I will just have to do a big load of googling to find them.
Doesn’t this kind of thing ultimately depend on the vision you’re going for? Doesn’t one actually justify an image one’s created, merely by stopping working on it?
Just as most of the people are regular, average joes, most of the visions had by people are average, drawn from the everyday averageness. If you happen to have a idea for a not-so-average image, well, I wouldn’t be surprised if people just didn’t get it.
Making images of pretty girls is what average joes do. And I’m not excluding myself from this group merely because creating nice, clean, commercial images is a bit of a challenge to me. I’m constantly practising on it because a) I can’t do it yet and b) it might bring bread to the table.
But I would oppose to anyone saying that you should only go for some weird, media-dictated idea of the human face, that other kinds of faces are simply repellent, nothing more. This is a bit where - I believe - it is not possible to stay out of politics.
Images in the media affect people’s self images, and CGtalk is as much a media as the next thing. If there’s only one type of image out there, well, doesn’t this send a message to the people who don’t fit the mold very well?
Absolutely. I cringe every time that I hear of Japanese women having operations on thier eyes to make them more “western” or African Americans having a similar thing done to their nose. What is the future going to look like? Are we all going to look like greek statues? (That is, after all the colourfull paint was cleaned off them by victorians).
Well, whatever. I bet the guy on the left would be blatently used for horror or a bit of a stir ;).
But anyway, I still haven’t seen any beautiful warts… Basically freakishness gives some interest for a while I guess. But I think the context is more related to subject matter than painting portraits of people, or rather the fact people don’t seem to accept odd anatomy. I’d say medical stuff would get you a long way at that. And at anything anatomical I bet.
You could also ask them to show you photographs of themselves that they like btw, saves you some rake people portraits.
edit: I have no problem with people wanting to have some recognisable or ‘better’ features stressed, it gives very nice paintings too. It’s when they can’t live with themselves because of that want when a bell rings with me. I don’t think the problem is the media, that’s the scape goat the easy target, doesn’t talk back and has all to do with the issue. Ultimately the people on tv are perked up real people. You can’t tell me that they’re an unpelasant something, the people with issues need to figure them out and solve them. Then we’ll all be living contently with what we were dealt. And ultimately, if we feel good about ourselves we can move more freely in more than one way, and really get more out of life :).
jmBoekestein, you seem to be missing the point.
You seem to be suggesting that any variatoin from the norm is ugly. I am saying that there isn’t a norm and there are many more perfectly natural variations in peoples faces than we let on. I would be interested in finding out more about this rather than having a discussion about your personal tastes.
Take the dimple example. Not many people have dimples but are they ugly? Not at all. They can be very attractive. Is a person with no dimples at all ugly? No, not at all. That too can be attractive.
Plus, if you think that art only has value if it represents traditional visual beauty then that is a little… impoverished.
There is a lot of beauty in an old, characterfull face. I would much rather have a pint with the guy on the left. Have you never had a pint with an old guy? A lot of these people have been through wars, revolutions, regeme changes etc.
Could you try and see what this thread is about by reading my posts? If you don’t have anything to contribute to it allong the lines that I am asking… then don’t. :shrug: (not trying to be rude here, just trying to keep the thread in line).
Well, it seemed to me you weren’t striking any core with your question. You were asking about variations in anatomy, are those dimples then?
As to impoverished, are youtelling us what variations are or querying about their accuracy in your work? Or maybe trying to find out things about it? If you want it to be representative of something, you’ll have to simply dive in the books and data. Basically…
some weird, media-dictated idea of the human face
If you’re talking about thin as a stick versus curvy and sexy - a group of fashion designers (most of them gay men, which means they prefer bony) are responsible for that (and I say that with nothing but respect).
That, plus the fact that people in rich countries are literally eating themselves to death more and more, and there’s a growing backlash to that.
No one can ‘dictate’ what faces we like. That’s a modern myth. The idea is silly, and vaguely insulting. Asian women operate their eyes to raise the lids, which makes the eyes look bigger - this is a desirable female trait to most people all over the world. That is DNA. It’s not a product of brainwashing.
I am asking what I am asking. The thread title and content say it all. Does anyone here know about variations? The sage Stahlberg did, thats why he has mentioned the one about Asian ladies eyes - thanks for that Stahlberg
I have often noticed the largness of thier eyes but I always attributed it to the high fat content of their diet (which may lead to the opposite of sunken eyes which would make them appear larger) plus the fact that thier eyes would contrast with thier darker skin.
See… Stahlberg brought up an interesting point and now we can talk about it rather than getting side-tracked by somethign else. If you want to talk about notions of beauty and conformity then by all means start a thread about it. That isn’t what this thread is about.
I am well aware that there may be books and research done on the subject but it is hard to find. I was thinking that maybe people here knew about it or could give me some leads.
You obviously don’t know about the subject so I don’t see why you post. I feel like the bad guy here but I am just trying to keep things lean and interesting. Please PM me for further enquiries.
It’s like this, people with no chin:
The bones there are smaller for some reason, meaning the jaw bone. This could be lack of certain substances leading to too little growth or just genetics.
All the muscles and tendons are still in place pushing the skin outwards, so you get odd bulges which would usually be around the (chin)bone there but are now not around but solely present. the bulge depends on the amount of usage of the muscles.
These are just simple things. Otherwise you need to be familiar with the basics of the human form to get to why it appears a certain way. So it’s either, understand the anatomy first and then try and find the deviations from it, or ‘what would you like to be using variations for?’. I’m busy with the second since I see no point in discussing all the various differences on a board for art theory because they are simply out there for the viewing and observing and are obviously countless, not theoretic at all. Then again, from an ‘art theory’ point of view, there are things to discuss, the usage of them visually. Which relates perception of others and ofcourse inevitably to beauty and ugliness. So again to be on topic, what’s it your asking about? I mean you are on the art theories and discussion forum and not the artistic anatomy forum, so, I don’t get your point. :shrug: I might have been off topic responding to some issues posed, which was in good fun I believe. But it was all off topic anyway. The sage up there mentions beauty ideals, should we discuss this now?
I don’t PM this in order to try and get something out of this. But, if it’s just some random info on variations you’re asking, that’s fine with me and I’ll sit back.
Well ok, let me re-phrase my question…
“I try to make sure that I represent a wide variety of body/face types in my work so I would be interested to know if there any good sources of information about the variation between people rather than just the similarities and how these variations are created - whether that be through lifestyle or genetics or a combination of the two.”
Oh, hang on… that is identical to my original question.
At no point did I ask why we would wan’t to use this variation so this thread isn’t about that. Anyway, why wouldn’t we? If you don’t want to use it then fine… what has that got to do with me?
You say “So it’s either, understand the anatomy (my italics) first and then try and find the deviations from it”
My point is that there isn’t a “The anatomy”. Yet again I will state that there are variations in anatomy. Not variations from the norm (what is the norm?) but variations due to genetics/lifestyle which people tend not to discuss (maybe because they don’t want to bring up issues of race?)
You seem to assume that normal=beautifull where normal=healthy I suppose. As it happens, many of the models which we see in the midia do not have normal faces. Many female models have abnormally small jaws and are told by authadontists that they should have thier jaw “corrected” for health reasons. Also, the large jaw and heavy brow that makes men look hunky are caused by high levels of testosterone. High levels of testosterone are bad for the immune system and cause stress and violent behaviour.
I will also repeat again that it is NOT possible to derive all variatoin from a standard model. Even if it were, the thread still stands as a discussion point of how this variation can work. And by the way, I have a reasonable knowledge of anatomy - I just don’t see that it can necesseraly help us work out all variation in a way that is obvious - as I explained in the eyebrow example and the dimple example.
I will stress again that this thread isn’t supposed to be about ideals of beauty - I am after an objective and non-political look at the variations in anatomy of the worlds population.
If you don’t like the topic then don’t post to it. Please.
Oh yeah, with the chin example in the first post… I could have been clearer there. What I mean is that, maybe as well as having a sunken jaw line, they also have a bag of flesh (fat?) under their chin which makes them look chinless… but they don’t have much fat anywhere else. Is this caused by thier lifestyle or is there maybe an un-common gene for storing fat around the neck just as there is for storing it around the kidneys and back etc?
I’m not expecting an answer for this particular question of course… it is just an example.
Well when it comes to fat-storing, that’s obviously genetic… most features of the body are genetic. Only a relative minority of things like bunions and broken noses and bone-eating pathogens etc are caused by the environment. Unless you count aging as part of the environment and not part of the genetic; depends on definitions.
Since evolution works the way it does, we always have a huge majority of ‘normal’ or nearly so, then a smaller and smaller percentage of more and more different or ‘abnormal’ physiology.
Exactly what the aberrations are, is very difficult to establish fully if you think about it: by definition the most abnormal is very rare, and so hard to find. I think you could dedicate several lifetimes of study only to pinpoint what is the norm for the human body and what are all the aberrations from it. A good start would be to study to become a doctor, but even that I think would not be enough. If there is a single book about it I haven’t found it, let me know if you do.
AARRRGH!.. not you as well!.. are you guys trying to wind me up?
What is this idea of the “norm” with “abberations” from it? Show me a photo of a normal person and I will show you another photo of someone who looks quite different but is just as normal.
We don’t in any way need to use notions of normality in order to study genetic variations. For example, there are white swans and there are black swans. You might say that white swans are normal and black ones are “abberations” but an Austrailian might say the opposite. We could spend forever trying to decide which is normal. Which evolved from which… which is more healthy ( and in what environment ), which is more common? Are we talking about common now or common through the whole of time? Or the whole of phase space?
OR… we could leave notions of normality completely alone and just acknowledge that there are PERFECTLY NORMAL DIFFERENCES between things. Black swans and white swans. Quite simple.
Or are you supposing that there is some kind of superhuman on which we are all based? Because there isn't!
So I say AGAIN. If you know about the differences between people and the way that those differences work then please enlighten me. If you don’t know anything about it, or if you think that it is a bad question, then just don’t post. Quite simple.
Knowing average proportions is a drawing tool.
There are such things as average proportions. This is a mathematical reality. If you know those average measurements, you can more competently analyse the degree to which the model in front of you agrees with or departs from those proportions.
It sounds to me like you object to the term “normal”
“Norm” in this case is a mathematical term.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=define%3A+norm&btnG=Google+Search
“Norm” is a synonym for “mean” or “average” –
“normal” and “abnormal” carry a lot of baggage now, but something abnormal is not, by definition, always “bad” or “undesirable.” It could simply be “abnormal.”
Everyone has the same facial pattern. Look at fibinachi’s theories and the golden mean, The facial pattern gets exponentially more complex or simple with every face, although patterns’ complexity might differ, the pattern will still maintain it’s mathematical sum of the human race. You don’t need books on ‘medical abnomailties’, all you need is your minds eye.
Everyones statements which you happlessly strike irrelevant in your thread is what made this thread progress so well. The swan anaology doesn’t fit, especially if you use DArwinian theory which artists somehow intertwine in their idealogical conventions to prep creation or duplication from quantity which gets labeled the norm or an abberation. abberations that DONT fall into those patterns are abberations. Theirs a lot of relevance.