[NOTE: new additions will be added at the top.]
I didn’t come up with theidea of Photoshopping a photo to match a drawing that’s perhaps a bit imperfect, but I think it’s a lot of fun, so couldn’t resist making one of my own to add to the pile. I’ve tracked down the guy who I think first made these, Jamie DMJ, here (see his creations at the bottom of this post). Also I’m not really criticizing the artists who make the drawings. Perspective, proportion, and anatomy are very tricky, and they are to be commended for not simply tracing an image, or even an outline. All artists are beginners at some point, and even the most famous artists make some suprising mistakes. I often go back and rework pieces because I discover my own flaws.
I’ll update this by adding new additions on the top, if and when I make them.
I originally saw this kind of idea in MAD Magazine when I was a kid. It showed photos of what kids would get if they got what they drew they wanted for Xmas. This sort of thing has always appealed to my sense of humor. Just looked it up online and bound it.
Mel was #2. #3 and any more will go on top.
And here are the ones by JamieDMJ
This one’s my favorite:
~ Ends
Art & Crit by Eric Wayne 
Neat idea. It would be more interesting if Hollywood actors looked like your versions. I’m sure the CGI would be up to it. Isn’t there a rare genetic condition that causes people’s features to form in highly unusual ways?
Are you going to include links and credits to the original fan art?
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The idea’s not mine, though. I tried to be clear about that. I think I’ll include the images by others that inspired me to make more of them. I’m not the type to ever take credit for anyone else’s stuff. I have more than enough of my own ideas.
I don’t think I want to credit the fan art, being as it’s not overly complimentary to their craft. That is a bit of a sticking point, which I assume you know, and is part of why you are asking.
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Yeah, I know what you mean – it’s a tricky area. Fan art has the same ‘good intentions let down by execution’ that you get in Bad Art collections. There’s also a question as to what they’re putting on display in these pictures. Some of it’s a sign of allegiance. The drive to pore over the face of someone admired has a psychological dimension. Some might think they have good drawing skills to show. How this stuff is judged depends on where you stand and what you want any judgement to achieve. For example, you might want to suggest that these pictures say something about fandom; for example, the way that worshipful acts can get people to display drawings that, were they of other objects, not normally be deemed worthy of display by who drew them.
As for crediting their work – I ask partly because I know how sore you get about your work not getting credited.
I think what you’ve done is quite fun. I think they work best without accompanying them with any judgements because that can be left to people viewing them. There’s quite a bit going on in them as triptychs go.
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Some of the ones I’ve been thinking of using are being sold online as prints, and the artists ask more for their work than I do for mine. They have a better chance of selling as well, because fan art and boob art sell better than fine art. At this point I’m mostly interested in how we go wrong when we try to draw a person. One big mistake people are making is to not move from the general to the particular, in which case there’s no stage of getting the general form down before honing in on the details. Once I make a photo-realistic version of sorts, the flaws become glaringly apparent. I try to eliminate the worst of those sort of mistakes in my own art, but they also lend a work some character. I prefer the cartoonish version of Mel Gibson to a perfectly rendered copy of a photo, for example. Anyone can use a projector to project an image on paper and just draw over it. There are as many near perfect copies of photos as there are ones with drastic anatomical anomolies.
I’m doing these partly just to entertain myself, partly to test my Photoshop skills, and also to plant seeds to get people to come to my blog and maybe look at some of my other material.
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Wow – I had no idea that kind of work was for sale. We should remember that just because something is for sale online, that doesn’t mean it’s ever sold. Unless there are visible stats of course.
One of the angles through your triptychs is the question of what correctness means. I think we can bypass questions about ‘normality’ in facial proportions, why a cartoon constitutes ‘bad’ in photo-real (i.e. inappropriate) terms etc. etc. The aim is clearly to provide photo-real, but the results are totally awry. What surprises me about the idea that these would sell is that it’s hard to understand what a buyer’s motives might be. I don’t see as these pictures qualify as ‘outsider’ art. For a start, why would an outsider draw a celebrity in the first place?! So what would anyone get from them? I sort of see the point of the accurate photo-real as something someone might put on their wall to express a preference to a visitor to their home. I would presume that any drawn version would allude to some notion of distinction that a photo can’t.
Still, your painted-in versions are indeed entertaining. Maybe you could put them up for sale as digital prints?
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