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Wednesday, November 8, 2023

Big head?


Is it just me, or is this guy's head a bit too big for his body?

 

4 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Photoshopped? Or some earlier alteration?

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    2. The typical adult head to body proportion is between 1:7 to 1:8.
      If you take the distance from the top of the crown to the base of the jaw as 1 unit, and measure on the photo (I printed it) the total body length, we find a relation of 1:6.5 units.
      This proportion is ABNORMALLY short!
      see
      https://www.thedrawingsource.com/figure-drawing-proportions.html and
      https://bardotbrush.com/how-to-draw-body-proportions/

      Both the head and the neck are darker than the rest of the body even taking into account the light angle.
      Probably the alteration was done using the original negative.
      Either because the body model didn't wanted to be identified or to present the head owner as a nude model (blackmail?)

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    3. I noticed the skin color differential, too, but a lot of these models were laborers who worked outdoors. In Northern Europe they rarely took off their shirts, resulting in only the face and head being tanned. Having said that, your analysis of the proportions is quite convincing, leading me to think the photograph was altered, probably back then.

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