First, find your skull
In the Troo Crime thread below, Some Veg linked to a facial recreation of a Viking Shield-Maiden and said he was always fascinated by the reconstruction process. Me too.
In the early days, they would take the actual skull and cut bits of pencil eraser to the correct size for the average depth of skin at that part of the face, glue the bits to the skull and then slowly build a layer of clay until it just covers the erasers.
That gives the basic face. After that, it’s largely artistic license. It’s far from perfect. If you’ve got a completely de-fleshed head, you have no indication of full or thin lips or chubby cheeks. The result was often dead-eyed and creepy. Still, it did sometimes lead to a real life identification.
In the local art club I belong to, a very elderly man applied for membership a couple of years ago. I knew the name. I knew I knew it. I searched until I found a book in my collection from the Eighties which described this very man as the “foremost forensic facial reconstruction artist in the world.”
Well! Naturally, I buttonholed him about it and we had a high old time. He said he hasn’t been that – if he ever was – in a very long time. It’s all done with scanned skulls and 3D models now.
His work these days is rather nice écorché portrait sculptures.
I can never remember the word écorché, so I Google variations of “without flesh” and get some wild answers.
Like this free 3D facial reconstruction software. The catch is, you have to have a 3D scan of your skull first. If you happen to have a skull on hand, there are lots of free programs that will take a series of snapshots and turn them into a mesh model.
Just saying.
Posted: November 20th, 2024 under true crime.
Comments: 7
Comments
Comment from Deborah HH
Time: November 20, 2024, 10:17 pm
Whereas you paint chickens only, I have to ask: Have you painted a chicken à la écorché? Because that would be so cool, and like the ultimate compliment to the old fellow.
Comment from Durnedyankee
Time: November 21, 2024, 1:32 am
Would it be gauche if I asked, has Putin been peeking in y’alls windows?
It seems the Germans are going to mass an army of foreigners who will largely speak very good American english in case Putin and his Tartar hoards try and overrun Europe.
I had to wonder if England is as non concerned as we seem to be here in the US that Joe Biden and your own goodly Prime Minister person are stuffing firecrackers in Putin’s shorts to see if they can trigger a response.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: November 21, 2024, 8:20 am
Me personally I’m scared shitless, Durned. Vlad has said he’d drop a nuke on London and I believe it’s not impossible. Don’t care about London, but it depends which way the wind is blowing whether it reaches things I do care about.
Our leaders are idiots, though.
Comment from Some Vegetable.
Time: November 21, 2024, 1:50 pm
Speaking of Russia, I think my fascination with facial reconstruction began when I read about it in the novel Gorky Park. They had found a dead girl, badly disfigured and unidentifiable. They decided to reconstruct her face, however before they could begin, they had to clean the remaining flesh from the skull.
Naturally, in those days, the Soviets used the finest system available.
They put the skull in a giant jar and filled it with beetles…and waited.
THAT left an impression on me.
Anyhow they then started as Weasel describes above, calculating the thickness that the muscles would be, marking that depth with pieces of eraser, and then…true artistry meets true science.
I am pretty jealous that Weasel got to spend an afternoon with that man; too fascinating. However, we’d be talking more about his past than his current avocation.
Even a “rather nice écorché portrait sculpture” weirds me out a little…
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: November 21, 2024, 6:34 pm
I actually saw his écorché portrait bust in a gallery window on the high street a year before he applied to the club. It was a bronze statue of pretty young girl and I did a hard double take when I realized she didn’t have flesh.
Later, when I worked out who he was, it made perfect sense.
Comment from Football Bros
Time: December 4, 2024, 8:10 am
This post offers an intriguing look at the evolution of forensic facial reconstruction, blending history, technology, and a personal connection.
Comment from ai poster maker
Time: December 6, 2024, 4:41 am
I actually saw his écorché portrait bust in a gallery window on the high street a year before he applied to the club.They put the skull in a giant jar and filled it with beetles…and waited.
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