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Advice on body proportions
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Message
Posted
hello,
This is an 'in progress' shot of a painting I'm doing of my neighbours late father.
He was in the german navy in WW2, and the section of boat behind him is a 'schnellboot'. After the war, he was a POW over here, then settled here. My neighbour has only one photo of him, just a head a shoulders photo in his uniform.
There's still much to do, (hands all wrong, wharf path paving at wrong angle, missing right hand side of boat bits, sky needs attention, etc etc etc)
But main issue is my husband thinks the mans head is too big for his body...
how to correct it, without starting again, and without altering the head. (I'm really happy wih the likeness of the face).
(Apologies for slightly fuzzy photo!)
Edited
by Helen Martell
Posted
It’s fine! I’ve no problem with the proportions. The original camera angle is looking down on the figure, slightly but it is, so there will be an element of foreshortening to a degree, small as this may be.
Also, the style of the cap is quite wide which is creating this illusion, if you cover the cap with a piece of paper, the head is fine.
Nice work anyway.
Edited
by Alan Bickley
Posted
Helen, it's so frustrating when there's that element of doubt and you've put so much work into it. ( I'm going through this at the moment). He does look slightly out of proportion, centering on the head and hat. You haven't got a lot of room to manoeuvre so that's a prob. Could you narrow the face a little and make the hat smaller, that might do the trick. As I said, you haven't space to lengthen the body, that may be the prob. I'm sure you'll get there in the end.
Posted
Helen, it's so frustrating when there's that element of doubt and you've put so much work into it. ( I'm going through this at the moment). He does look slightly out of proportion, centering on the head and hat. You haven't got a lot of room to manoeuvre so that's a prob. Could you narrow the face a little and make the hat smaller, that might do the trick. As I said, you haven't space to lengthen the body, that may be the prob. I'm sure you'll get there in the end.
Posted
It's a fine painting and I'd leave it as is apart from maybe Stephens good suggesting lengthening his pants a little. People come in all shapes and sizes and they're not all Mr or Mrs Universe. Since no one knows what he looked like full body, no use speculating, or indeed criticising. That's just personal opinionism (as this is)
Posted
It looks OK to me - the Kriegsmarine had rather archaic uniforms, and the hats (forgotten the proper name) the ratings wore were quite big. Must have made life a bit difficult in a U-Boot, but then - he's not U-Boot personnel. Somewhere or other, I've got some pictures of WW2 German sailors; if I can find them I'll try posting one or two. As for proportions generally - we're all different: I have a long body, but short legs (still a thing of extraordinary beauty, obviously - but the point is most of us don't fit any idealized proportions: which is why off-the-peg suits never fit!).
Posted
Thank you Robert.
I found one or two pics online of Kriegsmarine men, but mosty fuzzy small shots. In the man's portrait photo, his hat is really quite large compared to his head, so I think only a fraction off the right hand side will do.
Fortunately, the boat itself used to also be available as an airfix model, so there's a few reasonable photos online to help me with what the bits and pieces are, and colouring.
