CarisMatic

Here are some more hand painted textures I did yesterday. :D I rushed these… shouldn’t have.. but I took about 20 minutes on the pillow wall and 10 on the cloth. ~_~

Today, I’m working on hand painted repeating textures.

      One of the things I’m most passionate about when it comes to character design and character modeling are the subtle differences in facial anatomy from person to person that make us recognizable. As I’ve been growing as an artist, I’ve never been able to draw myself accurately, and this has always bothered me. Shouldn’t I be able to accurately represent what’s closest to myself…me? I have unlimited opportunities for reference and I can paw at my face as much as I like… not something you can do with just anyone.

   

      So, attempting to strengthen one of my weaknesses, I started practicing caricaturing my own face. In the post before this one, you’ll notice the top right hand long-necked creature is actually a hairless version of myself.

      I’m happy to say that I’ve butchered my likeness enough times to be able to recognize the different features of my own face that make it unique and recognizable. (Woo hoo!)

 The problem is, when I show that sculpt or any of the other caricatures I’ve done of myself in that manner, I get very strange looks.

      “You don’t look like that.” Yes, I do. I see it, don’t you? It’s an extreme exaggeration. I’d do the same for your face but you’d get upset. 

 

      Often, I’m caught looking at myself. In mirrors, reflections, my laptop’s webcam, I’ve even been called out for going through my own Facebook profile pictures.

      “My, aren’t we vain?” You don’t understand. As an enthusiast of facial anatomy, I am my own greatest resource. I’m continually watching how shadows play over bones and how skin creases with muscle movement. I’m studying you, too, but you don’t notice it because it just looks like I’m engrossed in our conversation. (Doesn’t mean I’m not.)


      I’ve studied my own face so hard it’s like… my perception of it has warped. You know that thing that happens when you say a word like “juice” over and over and stare at the word and the letters and ponder over it and suddenly it doesn’t make sense anymore? And no matter how hard you try, you can’t make it make sense again? That’s kind of what’s happened with me and my face.

      In an attempt to remedy this, I’m going back to an elementary level with it. I don’t think I’ve ever known what face shape I’m classified as. I always thought I was “long” or “oval” or whatever “emaciated” fell under. I came across a Youtube video that spelled out the different shapes. (You can watch that video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yv-haFAxeB0&feature=relmfu )

      I took screenshots of the nice lady’s drawings and multiplied them over a webcam shot of myself with my hair pulled back. I was discouraged until the last one I tried, the heart-shaped face, fit me almost perfectly. Such an rudimentary discovery… how was I so blind to it before? Seeing your subject in comparison to other, similar subjects certainly helps the portraiture and caricature process.

      This discovery, as trivial as it may seem, has energized me…for some reason and in some way. It’s kind of hard to describe. It’s like finding out that there’s a name for something that you’ve known all your life, but never had a name for. It’s like closure; it’s like a definition.

      I’ve supplied a few doodles from my notes and things illustrating the journey I described for you in this blog post. Maybe then you can see what I’ve been rambling on about.

Here are the final Beauty Passes of the Cambodian temple I created in ACG. Sorry for not updating here more often, but I hope you enjoy the final product. :)