George Perez Changes the Faces of Huntress and Power Girl

[aeka]

Originally when George Perez drew these two characters (Crisis on Infinite Earths is the only work I know of where he drew them both), he gave them more or less the same generic face he gives many of his female characters.

For the upcoming Worlds' Finest comic that he's currently drawing, Perez decided to do something different and model Huntress and Power Girl after his two friends Jana (JC Marie), a professional model and Margie Vizcarra Cox, a cosplayer. Admittedly I have issues with artists modelling characters after RL people, but that's a post for another day.

From Crisis on Infinite Earths, luscious pretty art. I especially love his attention to detail:



I especially love how he drew the pre-Crisis Helena Wayne (she was one sexy lady!):





For Worlds' Finest, Perez did this piece for a T-shirt:



I'll just go ahead and admit, while I do appreciate the effort at giving them different faces, I do think his Huntress and Power Girl looked better when he didn't actually model them after people he knows.

↑ In addition to an already terrible costume that looks like something out of a 1980s Scifi anime, Peege here especially makes me a sad sad panda on all scales. ↓


I expected better from Perez. ;_;

Hopefully the interiors look better. :/

Comments

[darkknightjrk]

...Those are different faces? ...Okay, if you say so.

The NEW new costume is...interesting. I mean, the asymetrical design makes her stand out, but I'm not sure if I'm a fan of the p. I think it would work better as an upper-case P than a lower-case p. I like that they're breaking up the white a little bit with the blue stripes, but wouldn't it help more if she had bigger blue boots instead of having blue soles?

I do have to ask, though--why do you hate that he's using models that he knows? I mean, how is it different from an artist using a photo reference or using a celebrity face? I would think that would actually help make the art better.

[aeka]

I do have to ask, though--why do you hate that he's using models that he knows? I mean, how is it different from an artist using a photo reference or using a celebrity face? I would think that would actually help make the art better.

I actually don't like when artists use celebrity faces either (especially celebrity faces).

It's hard to explain, but the best way I can describe it is (a) I don't think it's creative when a professional artist has to duplicate someone's actual face on a fictional character, and (b) when using a celebrity face especially, I lose a feel for the actual character and instead I feel like the art becomes less about the character and more about the RL person the artist admires. In a way it feels like the artist is promoting said person rather telling a story with said character if that makes sense.

More than anything that was actually one of the issues I had with Adam Hughes using Audrey Hepburn's face for his Catwoman covers. Instead of seeing Audrey Hepburn as a look for Selina, instead I felt Selina got lost behind the image of Audrey Hepburn and all I saw instead was Audrey Hepburn in a Catwoman costume. Basically, I couldn't UNSEE Audrey Hepburn.

It's one thing if a RL person actually inspires the creation of an actual character, or if a comic is serving as a continuation of a popular TV show, then I can see why an artist would actually use the likeness of the actors. But this is clearly not the case here.

[darkknightjrk]

Celebrities, sure, I can grant you that--but with models or cosplayers, I look at it as just the artist being able to draw unique and different faces that feel real. I mean, if you found out that an artist you liked used reference like that, like a, say, Alex Maleev, would you say that he isn't as good of an artist after finding that out?

As for Hepburn--maybe it's because I don't think I've seen a lot of movies with her in them, but I don't see her at all when I look at Hughes' Catwoman covers. I see Catwoman. That's damn near the iconic Catwoman to me.

[aeka]

1. I didn't say Perez wasn't a good artist for replicating actual faces, I said it was uncreative.

2. Professional models tend to be well known faces as well and cosplayers can reach that status as well if their cosplay is state of the art.

3. It is possible for an artist to draw different faces without replicating someone's actual face. It's one thing to draw inspiration from the likeness of a person, another is to actually replicate it.

[darkknightjrk]

True, true, and being able to do that on his/her own is great too--I'm just saying that as long as the artist gives each character something unique in their face, body, and expression to make them feel like a unique character next to the other, whether the artist was able to do that on their own or was able to replicate another person.

Also, I don't think 2 is really the case. There's a reason why I chose to mention Maleev--he uses local models or actors for that. He literally hired actresses to play as Spider-Woman and Scarlet when he was working on those two books.

[aeka]

Like I said I'm not against an artist giving characters unique facial features. It's when they start modelling them after RL people (especially famous people) that I start to lose a feel for their characters.

[darkknightjrk]

I think that was kind-of the hypothetical I was trying to get across to you--if you enjoyed someone's art in a comic, and then you find out that they used models for reference that were not famous by any stretch of the imagination, would you find the art to be bad then?

[mrstatham]

I think the current run on Invincible Iron Man and (obviously) Greg Land are pretty notorious for their photo referencing, and then especially Land because of the subject matter and manner in which he uses the photos.

So I think I understand where you're coming from to a degree, but some of my favourite books over the years have used a photoreferencing style; Maleev, Tony Harris, Alex Ross.. But then I think they put actual work into still maintaining their style, even when working from photos they've taken; Ross obviously likes to think he's the Norman Rockwell of comics, Harris keeps things caricaturised. Maleev paints and makes his images really gritty.

To me, that's valid and great use of working from photos.

[cleome45]

I'm not actually a fan of photorealism, but I don't object at all to artists working from photos. So long as they bear in mind that even photos can be inconsistent, and need more than just simple copying to be convincing in illustration.

[mrstatham]

Well, again. Alex Ross, Tony Harris, Alex Maleev. All of them use photography that they create themselves in their work. Contrast and compare with Greg Land, who copies his figures from identifiable public sources and reuses the same poses from the same photography over and over and over.

Ross isn't quite photoreal; There's, again, that whole Rockwell feel to his paintings that feel very idealised, glossy, and more than human. Maleev, again, has his style. Harris works his own style into his images very well. All of them do more than copy, as opposed to Land.