As I mentioned in Once Again With Cameron, I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the final product. It was definitely a good effort for the first real art being committed with intent for over a year, but it just wasn’t quite to the standard I’d expected. So I tried again.
On this second go (which I imaginatively titled “Cameron’s Bad Day II“), I was much more careful with getting the landmarks of the face correct–especially the eyes. Let me put the two attempts side-by-side so you can see what I’m talking about:
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You can see that “I” is simply off when compared to “II”. The key point is that the eyes in “I” are too small and too high. Clearly, I made a mistake during my initial landmarking.
Aside from the damaged parts of the face, which I sort of played with in both sketches since I could, another major difference was more in how to present the face. “I” has attitude. For “II”, I wanted to open up the expression more and make it a little less dour. Some of that was accomplished simply by having the eyes done up correctly (which slightly realigned the nose), but I also spent extra time on the lips…to give them a subtle ironic resignation that isn’t in the first attempt. Basically, I wanted to inject a bit of Summer Glau into Cameron’s expression.
By this time, those who have taken a peek at the galleries know that I’ll rework pieces. That’s part of the craft aspect of art. You practice. You tune. In many ways it’s like a great Jazz piece–its sounds more improvised than it actually is. It’s repeatable and yet it’s never ever exactly the same.
