Funny...you don't look Zorbatikish... (Due December 15, 2007)

[Ilaekae]

Funny...you don't look Zorbatikish...
(Due December 15, 2007)

I thought we'd do something fun this time...and definitely a little strange...

Nobody would be surprised if I pointed to the Mona Lisa, Seedling and a picture of somebody's kid sister and said, "Those are all human females." It's a given. They don't look alike, but there are certain things that make them recognizable as all from the same species, but DIFFERENT individuals. We'd never mistake one for the other.

There are times when i wonder if we really recognize how easy (and bad) it is to CREATE a female face (or a male face) that looks just like the last ten we did. Most of us catch ourselves doing it at some point, and correct in some fashion--different hair style, slight changes in the nose, eyes, chin, lips, that kind of thing.

But then we do something just a bit stupid, especially on a forum full of people who specialize in creating "non-human" creatures for the games and entertainment industries--we create a bunch of "aliens" that all look exactly alike for some of our illustrations. That's not right...these weird guys are just as different among themselves as we are. They know they're all Zorbatik, for example, but this one is Fred, that one is Stymie, and that one over there is dirty old Uncle George. They all look just a bit different...just like humans in a group.

For your assignment, we're all going to draw some faces. To keep it simple, they can all be full face, looking right at us. You can use any media you want, black & white or color, but do them ALL the with the same media, and about the same size, maybe lined up like a chart, or in clusters...whatever you feel comfortable with.

We will need the following:

TEN (10) FEMALE faces that are human, but all different enough to be recognized as individuals WITHOUT going to extremes (like having three eyes or something dumb like that). We want REAL GURLZ!

TEN (10) MALE faces that are human, as above.

and...

TEN (10) ALIEN/"MONSTER" faces that are all in the same species, BUT obviously subtly different enough for the average viewer to recognize as individuals.

That's a total of 30 faces. They don't have to be major masterpieces, and preferably not be three feet high each, but they should be big enough and just detailed enough for us to recognize the differences--I'm thinking somewhere between 2" and 4" high max.

This should be fairly easy to do, but it might surprise you when you get up around face Number 7 or 8, so walk around a bit and check out your neighbors, some magazines, and that green thing living on your roof.

Good luck.

[Jason Rainville]

I think I'll hop on for this one

One question: use ref, don't use ref, or use whatever the hell you want?

[HunterKiller_]

This maybe an unwise move, but I have to disagree with some of what ye old cat has said.

Specifically, about the differing alien faces.
Let me ask you this. How many of you can readily individualize a group of lemurs? Or baboons? Or naked mole rats?
That's right, most of us can't do that, because we as adults no longer hold the capacity to differentiate between the subtle facial alterations of another species.

The ability to recognize the faces of others species long ago withered away with our infancy.
I could write an essay explaining this, so I'll keep it short.

We are able to readily tell apart the faces of one another because we're surrounded by humans all the time, we've learned to pick apart the subtle structural variations of our fellow homo sapiens.

Ever heard of white guys complaining about Asians looking all the same? Chances, they aren't trying to be racist, it's very well that could lack the ability to differentiate. Why? Simply because they would've never encountered Asians in their youth.

I'll return the previous point about animals. It's a perfect example.
Animals of a single species generally look the same to us, that's a given, so the idea of a foreign species all looking generally identical, is not really such an absurd one.

I do believe that rendering individualized characters of an alien species is artistically awesome, which makes my argument completely irrelevant.
Have a nice day.

[enrigo]

Hmm... there might be some tricks to make distinguish alien faces, but what if:

TEN (10) WOOKIE faces that are all subtly different enough for the average non-Star Wars geek viewer to recognize as individuals.

[Seedling]

Ever heard of white guys complaining about Asians looking all the same?

The only people I've ever heard say this are white folk who don't have any Asian friends.

Ilaekae, this is a wonderful assignment!

[Smoke]

I might join this, never actually tried to paint a face before so it'll be hard D:

Are we allowed to use ref?

[realitychek]

So people can join in on lessons in the Classroom for All I take it then? If so I'm in on this one- great assignment!
and HunterKiller,
granted one would find it difficult to see the differences between individuals in a group of (like you said) lemurs, except for color patterns and all- but these are creatures, not characters, or living things in humanoid form. Movie example- in The Lord of the Rings, there are differences between all of the orcs, and you can tell that one is definitely different than the next but that they are all part of a particular group or race.

[Ilaekae]

I'm a firm believer in reference. Anyone who tells you never to use it for any reason is an asshole. Does that make my point clear enough?

Hunterkiller, disagreement makes my day. I live for it. Your points are well spoken, but I don't necessarily agree with you...

The inability to tell one individual from another because of nationality or skin color is racist bullshit, no matter how you twist it (AND I'm not applying this to you, but to the "people" you mention in passing). Strangely, I can tell one cat from another, and one horse from another. It's not all that hard--just careful observation.

In the context of the assignment, the "aliens" are probably sentient beings which can be derived from my description and intro comments. Even if that isn't obvious, there is no specific statement to prevent/eliminate any creature with a brain in its head, or a personality, from being our alien. As the creator of those "aliens," it's up to the artist to define the differences between those individual members of that "alien" group, which CAN be done in any number of ways. Telling me that the average person can't tell the difference between a fat alien and a skinny alien, or two of different ages, or by markings/ornament (Should I mention that we BLAND humans wear glasses, tattooes, different hair styles, makeup, clothing, different beard styles, and even come in different colors/styles/etc.?) would give me the impression that you consider the average viewer a real mushroom as far as brain-power is concerned.

Now, that leaves me in a bit of a quandry... You state that you disagree with me. On what? That we can actually come up with ten more-or-less-subtle variations of a non-human species? The people who work at Pixar, Massive Black and Disney might have something to say about that. Or George Lucas. Or shouldn't we worry about those idiots? Afterall, it's not like any of us here will ever be in a position to work for someone like them, will it?

[enrigo]

That's the good ol'

But I think HunterKiller got a point there, I've never seen a monster/alien that looks creature-ish and yet have distinct characteristic from each other. I'm sure a humanoid alien would be easier compare to a monster creature, or maybe I'm just lack in imagination.

[Ilaekae]

Actually, enrigo, remember that you're in charge of what the "base" creature looks like, whether humanoid alien or "monster," so it's up to you to decide what the differing characteristics would be. The could be as simple as scars, the shape of a "hair" ruff, broken teeth, or as subtle as an arrangement of spots or scales. And that doesn't touch the fact that even somebody as dumb as me can tell the difference between a skinny earthworm and a fat one, just for starters...


Oh...should I metion our SMILIE collection?

[HunterKiller_]

As I said, I totally agree with characterizing individuals in a group, and good way to do that is with external factors, such the hair and broken teeth or scars you've mentioned.

What I was trying to say is that the facial structures of a supposed alien group would look more or less unvaried to an average human being, unless these aliens had humanoid faces, of course.

It's easy to think that yes, we would easily recognize the difference, but once again, that's because we're so accustomed to other humans.

You say you can tell the differences between horses?
You're saying that if a slide show was set up with a hundred different horse faces, you would be able to tell me the differences that separate each and every single one of them as if they were humans?

Just to reiterate, I'm totally down with customizing individuals artistically, but I just wanted to share this scientific point of view, because I believe in function before form.

Oh and I just remembered a quirky fact. A lot of people had trouble differentiating Megatron and Starscream in the recent movie.

[Ilaekae]

"You say you can tell the differences between horses?"

Yes. About twenty of them, from the faces alone. They all belong to friends and my wife. It's not really that hard. And i'm pretty sure I can tell the difference between about 45 or so cats and name them, but only if I was pushed to it--I'd probably blow at least 10 of them because I haven't seen them since they were kittens.

"You're saying that if a slide show was set up with a hundred different horse faces, you would be able to tell me the differences that separate each and every single one of them as if they were humans?"

Now this is a completely different matter. I'm assuming these are 100 horses I never saw before? If so, I couldn't ID one from another as a specific horse (as in this is George, that's fred...) just as I couldn't tell 100 16-year-old brunette cheerleaders apart, and for the same reason. I don't know them.

But...if you're implying that I could not identify the 100 horses (or 100 cheerleaders for that matter) as being different from each other by pointing out various identifiable idiosyncracies between them in just a few seconds of study each, you're barking up a rather shaky tree.

The average artist (or doctor, or in some cases, the average observant police officer) can easily tell any number of individuals apart or they shouldn't be doing what they do for a living. And if you want some verification, identical twins not only run in my family, but i dated two different sets of ABSOLUTELY identical twins over my wasted life and never once had a single ID problem from day one with any of them, no matter how hard they tried to confuse me sometimes as a game... Want their names? (They might be a bit old for you, since they'd be between 55 and 65 about now... )

"Just to reiterate, I'm totally down with customizing individuals artistically, but I just wanted to share this scientific point of view, because I believe in function before form."

Kind of lost me here. I do appreciate your sharing the scientific view, since I'm a firm believer in learning things, but I'm not quite sure how we got to "function before form" in this conversation...(also a big believer in that concept, which is why I'm a bit puzzled...)

"Oh and I just remembered a quirky fact. A lot of people had trouble differentiating Megatron and Starscream in the recent movie."

Y'completely lost me here. I... don't know who Megatron or Starscream are.... A flaw in my education, probably...

[delectro99]

Since I'm guessing (and hoping) that we can just jump on the bandwagon for this Classroom for all... I'm In... now I just need to fix my scanner ^^;

[Ilaekae]

Go for it, Bubba!

[HunterKiller_]

Y'completely lost me here. I... don't know who Megatron or Starscream are.... A flaw in my education, probably...

Y - You... Wha?! But you are supposed to know them! You must've been... well I dunno, in you prime years when these guys were bustin' up the cartoon scene.

Nevertheless, I shall attempt to channel the necessary information into your aged gray matter at the speed of light via the incredible modern technology known as the internet.
GO!

[Maledict]

I'd love to jump on this, but Ilaekae, could you give us some pointers as to what differentiates male from female faces? From the information I gathered, the female faces have "softer" edges (Which are hard for me to understand...), smaller, less wide chin, higher eyebrows - Anything else you can add there? I don't think its so much the features I am having trouble with, but the shape of the face itself and its contours.

But in anycase, this is something I definitely need to practice.

[Seedling]

i dated two different sets of ABSOLUTELY identical twins . . .

Did you date just one of each twin pair, or did you date both at once? Details, man!

[Asatira]

This looks like fun. A cool challenge. I can do the humans pretty easily, either from ref or from my head. Doing an alien will be a challenge because I've never tried one. I'm intimidated by the idea of doing aliens (and any number of other sci-fi and fantasy creatures )

[Ilaekae]

"Did you date just one of each twin pair, or did you date both at once? Details, man! "

Bean Sprout, you are SUUUUCCCHHH a perv... Actually, the details are lost in the mists of history...sadly... (...or not so sadly, since I just remembered that one set tried to kill me with a broken beer bottle and a chrome-plated .22...)

Rabbi', females have a layer of subcutaneous fat (THAT'S FAT! FAT, Seedling...) that tends to smooth out the bone structure to a high degree, so females are smoother and softer-looking in the face (and other places), so when you draw a female face, the less detail like obvious "in-and-out" shadows and wrinkles, the better. Younger females have a tendency to look more childlike than males because of this. Their skin is smoother overall, and there are definite differences (but very slight) in the bone structure that add to this effect. Less of a brow ridge, smaller features (noses, chins, jaws, etc.). This doesn't mean that all females are this obviously different. Some will have noses and jaws that may be larger than some males, but they do look less obvious because of the smoothing of that fat (FAT!) layer...

Their bone structure overall tends to be a bit lighter because they don't need it as anchorage for the heavy muscle tissue that males have. That's why some lighter-built males look "effeminite" to some degree to most people.

The smaller build also exagerates the eyes, making them look larger, as does the female trait of wearing makeup to enhance this affect. The absence of an obvious "heavy" bone structure in the face (due mostly to the layer of fat again) and weak brow ridge also tends to make the eyes look larger, and the eyebrows higher (no deep eye sockets in shadow like the classic Marvel glowering male...)

Overall, the shape (outline) of the face is a bit smoother, with fewer "hard" bone points standing out. Sadly for some overly self-conscious professional models, this also means that their high cheekbones aren't really there, so they have their rear teeth removed to exagerate the little jaw/high cheekbone look.

[Seedling]

I'm a fat perv! I'm going to go cry into my second lunch now!

[Ilaekae]

Did I say you were fat? Did I? I said you were a...smooth...perv... Yeah! And that plate of burgers looks good...got another one?

Hunter', "You must've been... well I dunno, in you prime years when these guys were bustin' up the cartoon scene." If they came out when I think they did, I was too busy staying drunk and trying to get laid to watch TV then. That's probably why I missed the whole thing... (These are called Transformers, right?)

[enrigo]

Here's a typical episode of Transformer so you can get a better idea,

http://www.spikedhumor.com/articles/...t_Chicken.html

(From Robot Chicken)

[arttorney]

If people won't be able to tell them apart, then drawing them as individuals of a specific species can't do any harm, can it? People will just see them as the species.

Here's what I think is a powerful value of the practice though: All the aliens looking the same will be just fine if they get blown away within a second or two whenever they appear (e.g. Aliens). If they are going to be protagonists and communicate with humans it will be important for people to have visual cues. Otherwise, When King Moxmograt tells our hero to summon Figmort and Glub for a secret council of the elders, the audience will be like . Giving secondary characters a personality can only take you so far in a two hour movie because you don't have time to get into detailed characterization for everybody. Give one of them a nose piercing and the other a bad hairdo.

[ElementalMist]

This should be interesting, I just gave a lecture to one of my friends on how all her characters are the same exact person with a new outfit and pose... Time to put my money (hopefully not foot) where my mouth is.

As far as the alien faces go, I keep thinking of Babylon 5, (Centauri, Narn, Minbari...) but then again, they are humanesque aliens.

[Seedling]

As an example of how relevant this assignment, just think of the movie A Bug’s Life. Every importsnt ant in the movie was recognizably an individual, despite all being ants.

[alesoun]

There you go, Boss Cat; ten males,- some from imagination, some from memory, some from ref.....

all different. I'll work on the females and post them here when I'm done.



Guess who's never tried to draw aliens before? Top row are males, bottom row females.....

[kingcoyote]

Another great assignment! Hopefully, I can scrape a couple of minutes together to do this one, but it doesn't look hopeful.

I thought the transformers example was a good one, and grabbed some images of those two characters (both classic, AND the mentioned redesigns from the film) I thought these were good, because they do hold up as part of a group, or species, or whatever and as individuals. I think the main thing to remember is that there are rules about what makes things a species (or group), and that as long as those rules hold up, the details are what makes us individuals.

Another example is magazines (or hell, even TV shows). An issue of Guns & Ammo, (or an episode of Happy Days) is set up just like all the others using something called a style guide. But the content is different. Most of us can tell within a few moments (or seconds between channel flips) not only what show is on, but whether we've seen it before. The human brain is extremely adept at picking up, interpreting, catagorizing and defining patterns. This includes differences in individuals.

Hopefully, I didn't overstep my bounds here.

[edgaronfo]

Hello Everybody,

I want to hop-in into this "Classroom for All" (it's too bad I didn't know about it before!), I hope I can meet the challenge.

[TimV]

I usually have the opposite problem... no matter how many times I try to draw the same face, it always ends up looking different. I suck at drawing faces, but I'm getting better thanks to Loomis' books.

Kidding aside, it was really cool to draw these faces looking for what made them unique and identifiable. Here's my first whack at the guys. I'll post the gals and the aliens when I get those done.

I'm still trying to figure out how to make my scans look better. Does anyone have any tips?

[alesoun]

Updated with women's faces.