Head Proportion

[jimmorgan@classicnet.net]

How is the width of the head determined in relation to the profile (forehead to back of head) or vice versa?
THANKS,
Jim

[jimmorgan@classicnet.net]

How is the width of the head (front) determined in relation to the profile (forehead to back of head)?
Thanks,
Jim

[kaiserb]

Standard Facial Proportions:

• The eyes are halfway between the top of the head and the chin.
• The bottom of the nose is halfway between the eyes and the chin.
• The mouth is halfway between the nose and the chin.
• The corners of the mouth line up with the centers of the eyes.
• The top of the ears line up above the eyes, on the eyebrows.
• The bottom of the ears line up with the bottom of the nose.

In addition to this: http://underdog.dreamcomics.com/english/head.htm

[wade clark]

Brian,
Thanks! Timely info as I'm working on my Santa from Goodie tonight and it'll be only the 3rd face I've carved. It seems harder when it's small like the Santas. I knew the nose was in the middle, kind of below the eyes above the mouth between the ears, but I'm writing this info for future reference!
Wade

[BobD]

I gotta patch my santa's mouth--I didn't leave enough wood to make lips! That is my first ever face...maybe I should stick wiht abstracts ARGGGGG


Bob

[Irish]

Jim, You might also want to go here ... www.carvingpatterns.com/woodarticles/instruc4.htm

In working on the face think in terms of one eye's width. The average face is five eyes wide by eight eyes long with the facial features in the bottom half of the face. The nose takes up the upper half of the bottom section of the face.

Susan

[Irish]

Use one eye's width as the measuring unit and place the head inside a rectangle. Visualize the chin touching the bottom of one side of the rectangle and the nose touching, the face slants back about one half eye width if you ran a line from the tip of the chin to the brow ridge. The widest point of the cranium is touching the other side.

Worked from the rectangle, the cranium is about five eyes wide and tapers to four eyes wide at the jaw line. The chin is about two eyes wide. That jaw point is in the bottom quarter of the face. The widest point of the profile head is center of the top half of the rectangle ... just above the ear with the ear at the top edge of the bottom half of the head. The neck is centered to the entire head ... it does not come off the back of the cranium.

Susan

[wade clark]

Bob,
Abstract Santas...I like it! I may call mine an abstract when I'm done too!
I've met Santa more than once and I don't remember him having lips....
Wade

[Callynne]

Hey Bob, I'm curious to see how your lipless Santa is going to turn out!!

When I first stared carving I was using the ends of 2x4's....it didn't hold detail real well! I was working on my Christmas Carol set, the Ghost of Christmas Past, a little lady ghost. I was almost totally finished, just working a little around her mouth, when off popped her lips and half her nose!! I didn't know what to do, if I tried taking it back into the wood further she wouldn't have looked right. So....my only solution was to remove her entire face, shave the wood flat, glue a new hunk of wood in and start all over. Boy, did she look weird, all carved except for a flat piece of wood sticking out of her hair where her face should be! Turned out okay and her face is still right were it should be!

Hope your solution isn't as drastic! Good luck! Callynne

[kaiserb]

Here is a site I found helpful on this subject.

http://www.portrait-artist.org/face/structure4.html

If you surf around this site it has all kinds of proportion references.