Without a doubt, this exercise has been the most problematic in this part of the course. My memory is truly appalling, I work in a class with fantastic children and after 2 weeks of holiday I have to reacquaint myself with some of their names. I am more likely to remember what car you drive over why I know you?!? My link between the contents in my head and the end of the pencil is as a result particularly weak, so I was glad there was an option to create a portrait off the description of a character in a book or out of the imagination.
Problem there is I haven’t had the head space to read anything fictional for over 2 years and I read a lot before that which sort of blends into a big descriptive soup over separate individuals I can place in any given book.
So I asked friends for suggestions…
Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series is probably the set of books I have re-read most over the years. Cohen the barbarian is well described in the Light Fantastic and my response is above. Doing the picture again, I would pencil in the initial marks as I can’t delete the chin without using white paint and that would look at odds against the light pen marks I have made. I would also bring his head forward and down to suggest a curvature to the spine, I’d need to darken the body to take it back. I am happy with the signs of age I have given him, I tried to pull the chin up to accommodate the lack of teeth and I like the colours I’ve used clashing slightly to give a hint of sallowness to the skin-tone. I’m not convinced I’ve got the ears correct, but I am aware that as you age, ear lobes and nose ends gan droop a touch and I wanted to give a hint of that.
Another friend pointed me at a web page with sci-fi fantasy book descriptions and why they work. It helps I had read most of them anyway so understood the context of the character that then spreads throughout the rest of the book. However, my depictions have not been as successful as Cohen.
Bear in mind these are both essentially aliens, I think I need to widen Ford Prefects head. His skin ‘Seemed to be pulled backwards from the nose’ This says a lack of wrinkles to me, his eyes are unblinking, so I’m going with wider given your eyes are supposed to be watering in sympathy by the end of a conversation with his and the mouth is smiling a touch too broadly. Its difficult because this seems to be more of a caricature than a believable person. The actual highlights that place a person in the real world are missing, the individual quirks that mean the eyes a bit wonky aren’t there.
Alia from Dune has blue eyes due to the spice, she is a very young child who was born old and as such I have tried to portray her as young with the confident bearing of someone older. She is a more believable head and face than Ford, proportionally Alia is more correct. I just don’t have enough imagination to complete the drawing though.
I prefer Cohen.
Megan Cheetham 