Here are the latest 2 additions to my Selfies From Alternate Universes series. Now there are 6 of these apparitions. If you didn’t read my prior post, they are all based on recent pics of me, use FaceApp, editing in Photoshop, and digital painting mostly in Corel Painter.
I think I’m going to share these in sets of 2, which allows some comparison and contrast. So far I’m alternating doing one male and one female.
With the guy above I tried to incorporate more background, and this one has a more dynamic composition [There’s some editing such as widening the column behind my head, and I eliminated people on the right side]. I’ve never even considered having just a mustache as a possible style choice for me, so this may not be an older guy I will age into. At first I was thinking he reminded me of Richard Dreyfuss, but then I realized, looking at his right eye, that it’s Donald Sutherland. Also, my dad and my uncles and grandfather had mustaches. The blue cast to the lighting is deliberate. I think it goes with the airport atmosphere.
I like that it feels a bit like a still from a movie. I didn’t admit this in the first post, but among the several other ideas I’m dealing with here, there is an attempt to immortalize myself in a way.
I like this woman. She seems more trustworthy than the mustachioed man. And, yeah, that’s a pretty believable older woman version of me.
The fan came out rather nicely.
Here are some more details from the two digital paintings. My technique has improved a bit with incorporating some new brushes, a palette knife, and letting the canvas texture show through in places.
Above you can see how I’m able to just suggest hair without trying to delineate individual strands. Around the mouth you can also see how I’m trying to achieve different kinds of strokes . Some are more blended and some more bristly.
Anyone who says “digital painting isn’t painting” (Hi Charles) hasn’t experimented much with Painter. The arsenal of brushes and the myriad menus to fine-tune them are daunting. I see these images as hybrids more than strictly paintings. They retain the feel of photos but also have painterly details.
Stay tuned for more in this series.
Here’s all 6 so far:
Stay tuned for more in the series.
Art & Crit by Eric Wayne 
So far it seems to me that the female verision is more engaging and/or friendly in facial expressions, etc. While the male verision comes across as a bit irritated/standoff-ish or even abrasive perhaps because of his body language, ie crossed arms and narrowed eyes,.etc. He also seems to avoid direct eye contact with the viewer, except for this newest one, looking off the page – away from the viewer which suggests evasiveness. Not sure if this intentional on your part or not, but it’s an intriquing concept.
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Nice observations, which also make me chuckle. I’m glad if some of the portraits have some attitude, as it adds to the variety and scope of humanity.
I’ve looked at hundreds of the sources images, and so I have an idea what the next 8 or 9 will be like, so I look for ones that stand out a bit.
Thanks for following the series so far.
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I really like the older woman. She looks warm and friendly, like she has a few stories to share. Khurtak is right, the man is defensive, but he fits in well in that movie set. He could be the go-to guy when Daniel Day-Lewis retires.
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I think it’s the mustache. I mean, it’s after a picture of me in which I didn’t look sketchy at all. Odd things happen in the neural network. There are some weird glitches as well. the technology is, after all, while not conscious, nevertheless intelligent.
Glad you like the older lady. I feel the same way about her. And that’s a curious thing, which is that I identify more with her than with the mustachioed version of me.
However, I do like that he’s some unusual variant. With the males some of the appeal is when they are not like me, and with the females it’s when they are. I think it’s because if they are men and they are too like me than it just IS me. With the women if they are not like me than they are just someone else entirely. So, there needs to be a link, but also difference. Though there could be a few overall that are similar to me, when they are different from most.
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The male one kind of reminds me of David Firth’s bizarre CGI creations from his series “The news hasn’t happened yet” which just had a new installment today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISTajZAmyKM . I really like the inclusion of other people in this one, because it makes it feel more like a reality, even if that reality is alternate.
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I hadn’t seen “The news hasn’t happened yet” until now. It’s rather fascinating for the use of technology. Cheers.
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