(urth) Speaking of Art...

[Son of Witz]

Luchadore! Ahhhh!
Well, not bad really.
Cyriaca mentions his chin is covered, because she guesses he has a cleft chin, and Sev says she's wrong, and she says he is wrong. So whether he has a cleft chin or not is ambiguous, but it is covered, and she says she can see enough of his lips, implying that they are partially covered. One imagines slits.

Anyway, it may not be obvious untill you actually try to draw Severian in garb, but with a fuligin cloak and fuligin pants and boots and mask, which should properly be rendered as pure black with no highlights (except possibly where the material is dirty or guilded, as in the master's ceremonial masks) leaves an artist with mostly a silhouette with bare chest, some bits of lip and flesh eyelids showing, but not much else. Plus it often looks like some fetish bondage superhero thing. All this goes away when I show chin and mouth. Suddenly there is a character whose emotions can be drawn to some degree.  Luckily, Severian actually whears the mask very seldom in the story.  

Of course, that begs the question as to why picture him, on the hardcover, like some angsty bondage hero? That is the Severian he grew OUT of and did his best to leave behind. Thematically, it's almost rude to frame his book with him in garb. 

On Jan 4, 2011, at 10:34 AM, Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com> wrote:

> 
> From: Son of Witz <Sonofwitz at butcherbaker.org>
> ...
> 
> >At a point, an artist needs to divert from the text.  I have been unable to draw a torturers mask with
> >a chin that I like one bit.  Somehow, for me, the whole mouth and jaw need to be shown for
> >aesthetic reasons.
> ...
> 
> I know part of his mouth is supposed to be hidden, but does his chin have to be?  If not, how about some variation of this shape?
> 
> http://www.myspace.com/albino_bullfrog/photos/13129598#{%22ImageId%22%3A13129598}
> 
> Jerry Friedman
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Urth Mailing List
> To post, write urth at urth.net
> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/attachments/20110104/c00adbb6/attachment-0004.htm>