{19 }Natural Beauty

Beautiful Rich Natural Features – No Artificial enhancements
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Not a frequent cosmetics user – no need for any either.
Same goes for her Sister
Both could send cosmetics companies broke, Lol!

It started with great potential

but then i got very sick, my brain turned totally blunt
losing all sense of lines, colours proportions, dimensions, and all
my hand working blindly with no internal guidance
so i lost it all several times – gave it up twice and started a new outline
Still way too sick to make any progress, i kept going back to this
until the paper started screaming and groaning
and in the end, after so many repetitions and alterations
my brain was reconditioned into seeing what i would like to see
and could not judge anymore how true, close or far from original.

I decided to complete it and then leave it, being as it may.

So …here it is … but still cannot tell …

Independently does not look too bad

And certainly way better than the initial attempt
when i first started a couple of months back.

The idea actually was to present a better version of the initial ones
i felt had been disadvantaged by my beginner’s inexperience.

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Some imaginative Software Play

Looking at the finished one i can see a couple of Angle / structural
mistakes needing correction. An experienced artist would spot them
immediately but … i m not telling on them, Lol!
It is all a learning journey…

{18 }Thoughtfully Focused

Thoughtfully Focused and handsome like a Prince.
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I Love the slightly pouty expression of his perfectly shaped Lips
and the intensely Focused Thoughtful Expression of his Eyes.
He does not look sad or angry but rather deeply engaged
in observation of something going on/someone doing something?

It was neither simple nor easy capturing this expression
but i believe after several corrections of eyes and lips
and after at some point resigning to accepting it as undoable
i finally managed to succeed to a great degree

This lifted my spirit and helped continuing on with more zest

Below Three Brightness /Contrast versions of the Final one.
The Pinkish/Blue Background is not software manipulated
but rather deliberate ‘clever’ advantage of Lighting in the Room.

Very Light Version – Many features almost washed out

Slightly Darker – Some Features brought forth

Much Darker – All features quite prominent

The copy below IS a Software Play!

{17}: Little Sprout

Beautiful intelligent Piercing Eyes – Humongous Black Pupils
Sprouting from the ‘Jolly Little Buddha’ to a Little Big Man!
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His hair –at least in the photo – is not Brown nor is it Blond
but rather sort of Smoky Gold, and i have nothing remotely
near it in any of the colours in my pencil sets
so that’s the closest representation i could achieve.

There is also no visible light reflected in the eyes in the Photo
-the Pupils look like two humongous delicious Black Plums-
so i had to guess where to allow some, so they would’t look
like flat buttons in the sketch and was happy with the way
it accentuated the happy expression on his face.
I was tempted but reluctant to round them a bit darker
in case it dulled the expression and made it look sad or severe.

Other than the closest Likeness of the Face
I chose -not to focus on faithful detailed photo reproduction
which i find a too tedious and limiting task for my purpose
and pleasure and often at the expense of Expression

I added cute child themes easy to scribble
and in small proportions, so that they enhance
and draw attention to the face

I also went light on colour with this one, i thought it suited best.

I must confess much like in this project
i often find myself torn between two extremes:
On one hand I seem to like the initial minimalist look
when only a bit of Facial colour has been added,
against my equal liking lavish richness of colour.
I find the minimalist look has it all and allows
the Brain to fill the gaps and compensate for any
missing details much like it does with photos
while the more colour details added though in a way
they get to complete the picture, on the other hand
they seem to add and subtract elements
while turning the brain to its more critical function
of spotting the ‘missing’ or … ‘distorted’.
Add to that the angle a photo is taken
and a few more elements are haphazardly added or obscured.

To illustrate what i mean:
1) The First Photo shows a cute, bright, happy little face
Second photo the hair colour added takes away some of it
and looks more grown and more serious.
2) In the Third, the angle the photo is taken
it portrays a potential future 16 year old teen

Of course even in real life faces often show hints
of future ages and development
so i can forgive this and … marvel! 🙂