TYPES OF FACES

I thought I'd blog about faces again.

It occurred to me that there are two kinds of faces in the world. In one kind (above) the elements are unified. All the features seem to fit with each other. You would expect a girl with eyes like the ones above to have a small mouth, and a girl with those kind of rounded cheeks to have a rounded nose. Everything harmonizes, as if the face were sculpted from a carefully made blueprint.

Young women in particular have faces like this.

The other type of face (above) is diversified. In this example the lips seem out of sync with the rest of the face. I picked a pretty extreme example just to prove a point. On most women the out of sync quality isn't this drastic, and doesn't detract at all.

Older people tend to be out of sync more than younger people. I guess that's because different parts of the face age in different ways. A face can be in sync in youth, and out of sync in middle age. Oddly enough, extreme old age tends to put the face back in sync again.

In the case of the woman above, whole facial masses are out of sync. The upper half of the face is broad and wide. The lower part is long and slender. She's still pretty. Every detail within the two masses is in sync, only the two large masses are off.

Here's (above) a woman with three major masses that are out of sync: the forehead and eyes are one mass, the cheeks and nose are another, and the mouth and chin are still another. Three separate design groups on one face! I kinda like it.

Here (above) we're back to a unified design again. What harmonizes this face is the repetition of rounded chevron shapes, not only in the details of the face, but in the shape of the jaw.

That's all I have to say about faces. I hope I haven't given the women on the site something to worry about. Most people have out of sync faces after 25 or so...that's what gives them character. Look what it did for Jeanne Moreau (above).

I have nothing else to say about facial structure, but while searching for faces on the net I discovered the interesting pictures above and below, so I thought I'd pass them on.

What do you think of the picture of the two sisters above (click to enlarge)? I like it a lot. It's so happy, so full of good vibes. It brings back pleasant memories of family members I met when I was a kid.

Okay, this is gruesome. Sometime after this picture (above) was taken, this woman was shot in the face with a shotgun. After shooting her, her husband shot himself. Miraculously both survived, but the wife required a facial transplant, possibly the world's first.

Here she is before surgery (above, left), and after (above, right). I assume the swelling in the jaw'll go down when the face heals. If you cover the overly-broad part of the face, you can see that the middle is a big improvement. Maybe I'll donate my face to somebody before I kick the bucket. It won't mean much without the buck teeth, though.

NEW FACES TO DRAW (AND A FEW BODIES)

Ever the friend of our fellow cartoonists, the Theory Corner staff once again presents a tableau of thought-provoking models to draw. Let's start with Richard Widmark (above) who was a terrific psycho villain when he was young. 

A skinny, giggly sadist with a weird hat, a low class dark shirt, and a loosely hanging raincoat...what's not to like? Widmark enjoys intimidating people, and even though he's a sociopath you grudgingly like him...well, in a way. He enjoys his work, and that makes him magnetic.  

   

Basil Rathbone (above) was a great Sherlock Holmes, but he was an equally great villain. To judge from the picture above, he had it in him to play psycho-villains of the Widmark type. The look on his face seems to say, "Thanks for the favor, Pal! I come into your office to rub you out, and you save me the trouble by backing away, right out an open window. You even leave me your cigarettes!"

  

It's fun to draw women sitting (above) when they're wearing short skirts. Most women in this situation don't know what to do with their legs, and they try to hide them under purses and couch pillows. It's kinda cute.

There's one pose that's that all sitting women try to avoid, and the lady above has just taken it. It's the deadly fork pose where the legs descend in open parallel, and from an angle that makes them look oddly small and out of proportion. They look like marionette's legs.

I like the seam on the couch.

This wise woman (above) avoids the fork by taking a deliberately stylized, closed leg stance, with body thrust forward. 

Poor Victor Mature got stuck with this puppet suit (above) in one of his films. Man, one faux pas like this undid all the image building cultivated in his last half dozen gladiator films.

In real life I love to draw conversations between two people who seem to come from different worlds (above). The clash of human types is one of my favorite themes. 

MORE FACES TO DRAW (PART ZILLION)

I don't know why, but muzzles fascinate me. It's the first thing I look at when I regard a face. This girl (above) has a protruding muzzle. When that's combined with rounded shapes and full lips as it is here, the effect is one of warmth and friendliness.

For contrast, here's (above) a flat, linear face, also very friendly. Three elements dominate the face: a straight vertical nose, down turned eyes at the corners, and dimples that form a marionette's mouth. All these straight lines are set off by an unusually graceful curve of the jaw and a long neck. This is a very appealing face.

And did I mention the Klimt hair!? Wow!

Here's (above) an interesting face. Can you guess why? Sure, she has a high forehead and a reduced chin, but what else? Well, if you're a muzzle fan like I am, then you noticed that she has minimal cheeks and no dimples, not even the most common ones. I wish I knew how faces like this age. 

The glasses make a great statement.

Where did I get this picture? Somebody deserves credit for digging this up. No comments on this one; it's all too obvious.

BTW: Mark Simonson speculates that these are all guys: Mathew Broderick, Jimmey Kimmel, and Stephen Fry. Simon says the Boderick picture is really Brendon Frazier.

Art technique books are always saying that some people have square heads. If you ever doubted it, then regardez vous!

A fascinating face dominated by the rounded forehead, and big eyes which have prominent lids on both the top and the bottom. Note also the thin hair. I always imagine that thin-haired people are high-strung, but I might be wrong. 

Egad! It's Hermione's hair (above) from the Harry Potter movies! Is it real? That hair looked great on Emma...Emma whatshername from the movie, and everyone was heartbroken when she appeared without it. The two latest Potter movies even gave Hadgrid (spelled right?) a haircut.

What a find (above)! Once again though, I don't what blogger to thank. The muzzle here is minimal. Gee, minimal muzzles are more common than I thought! The small mouth makes for a terrific contrast with the over-the-top, sad, bored, wide eyes. The eyebrows are calligraphic. The hair is perfect.

Aaaargh! In a comment Stephen claims that this is an aristocratic playboy/actor and writer named Brian Howard.

Thank Goodness...a muzzle (above)! The facial features are all bunched up into a tight package which is surrounded by oceans of empty flesh.  Er....is this a guy? Mike says it's Matt Lucas from "Little Britain."

SOME MORE FACES TO DRAW

Holy Mackerel! What a smile (above)!  The cheeks are amazing.  When someone smiles like this, do the cheek muscles inflate or simply bunch up? If they bunch up, then why doesn't that steal mass from some other part of the face? Almost the whole muzzle gets larger. 

Also interesting is the triangle in which her nose and mouth are embedded. They do lose a little mass, but not enough to explain where the cheek bulge comes from.  When the triangle stretches out to the sides like this, you can see the features wrap around the vertical mouth cylinder. 

I love clothes that wear the human.  Here (above) John Carradine is enveloped by a predatory Gaham Wilson jacket . The jacket is the sentient creature, Carradine is merely the conveyance.

What a silhouette! Look at the way the man's features (above) wrap around the front of his head. And that furrowed brow...!

Nanga! Nanga! Nanga! ! I love "S" curves in figure photography (above). 

A typical nerd face (above)...or is it? If you imagine a normal hair cut, no glasses and a closed mouth, the guy doesn't look like a nerd anymore.  It makes you wonder how many nerds you know that are really normal looking people who dress funny.

 Above, a "Z" curve! Also, a fascinating head shape and chest on this girl. The straight hair emphasizes them.

Some girls (above) are self-conscious about having braces,  and they try to cover them up by smiling in a strange way.  I sympathize. After a lifetime of smiling in a way that covers up my buck teeth, I've learned to let my teeth show naturally.  I'd hide them if I thought it would do any good, but there's no use trying to conceal what can't be concealed. Actually, I kinda like them now. 

People's whole lower muzzle (above) withdraws into their face and neck when they smile, or at least it seems to. The effect is heightened by the whole head being pulled back and the cheeks being thrust out. Fascinating, eh?

  

SOME MORE INTERESTING FACES

Hepburn (above) of course.

Every teenager (above) thinks they look good with hair that oozes down over one sise of their forehead. You can't talk them out of it.

Willie Dixon (above) and his famous gold tooth.

A fascinating example (above) of a face that has different characteristics in each hemisphere. The head is robust above the cheeks, and flat and receding below the cheeks. Still nice to look at though.

An uncommonly slanted forehead and large nose (above), but they don't detract from her looks. It's amazing how many deviations from the ideal there are that still look good.

The comedian, Terry Thomas (above). The gap in the teeth works beautifully, and so does the upturned mustache, eyebrows and hairline. He wanted to be a dramatic actor but his head had different ideas.

Sammy Davis (above), the caricaturist's dream. Those grief lines on his forehead are terrific!

Dietrich: did the photographers create her or did she create them? What a sculptured look!


Wow! Many thanks to Katie for the link to these these heads! Click to enlarge.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tamedblossom/sets/72157622826526302/

FACES TO HANG ON THE WALL

I'm always interested to see what cartoonists hang on their walls. Usually it's cartoons and paintings. Sometimes it's music and film posters or, if the walls are dominated by the cartoonist's significant other, stately pictures of roses or horse-drawn carriages. My walls are mostly masks and cartoon cels.  The rest tend to be faces, why I don't know.  Here's a few that I either have framed up on the wall or am thinking about putting up.

This is a nice picture to end with, isn't it?  This is my all-time favorite picture of a dog, the towering Mount Everest of dog photos.

Thanks to Mike F. for turning me on to Julie Newmar and the "She May Be a Bag of Trouble" poster. Thanks to John K for the Mortimer Snerd photo.