Pensive, personified.
I always wonder how much direction Adam's given before a photo like this gets taken, or if this was the result of the photographer seizing the opportunity to catch him in a quiet moment. The rest of the photos from this shoot are in a similar vein; beautifully moody and thoughtful, with Adam in profile, eyes cast down, or with his head lowered, hand held up to his mouth, and they all feel very posed.
All, except this one, which is oddly balanced between posed and spontaneous; the angle feels posed, but the line of his gaze doesn't track with the position of his face, and he's wearing the most unfocused expression I think I've ever seen on him. I wouldn't go so far as to call it dreamy, it's not soft enough for that, but it is absent.
Normally Adam is very clearly in the here and now, and the force of that focus is part of why I think folks consistently describe him as intense. He is relentlessly present.
But in this, it looks like he's a million miles away, caught gazing on some inner landscape, the outside world reduced to a haze. It doesn't have the stormy intensity of his classic resting Hades face; with only the gentlest of rumples in the center of his brow, the muscles around his eyes, in his cheeks, and around his mouth and chin are all completely at ease. There's not even his usual tiny downward creases at the corners of his mouth that indicate the infant stages of a smile or frown.
And yet, for all that it's so calm, this is still an intense expression; it's just that the intensity is focused inward.
Photo used for reference was taken by Michael Nagle on 2 Dec 2019, for an article published in the LA Times in Jan 2020, with thanks to![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
feedingtherats for sharing it with us.
About 13.5 hrs of drawing time for this one. There was so much detail in the reference it felt like a disservice to not at least try to capture most of it. I was delighted to get to paint the fine threads of silver shot through his hair; we don't get to see them very often, but he'd been wearing wigs for his turn as Henry in "Annette" and obviously hadn't gotten his hair colored in several months. They're still subtle enough that you really have to look to find them, but they're there, along with the faint lines where his face creases when he dimples.
I always wonder how much direction Adam's given before a photo like this gets taken, or if this was the result of the photographer seizing the opportunity to catch him in a quiet moment. The rest of the photos from this shoot are in a similar vein; beautifully moody and thoughtful, with Adam in profile, eyes cast down, or with his head lowered, hand held up to his mouth, and they all feel very posed.
All, except this one, which is oddly balanced between posed and spontaneous; the angle feels posed, but the line of his gaze doesn't track with the position of his face, and he's wearing the most unfocused expression I think I've ever seen on him. I wouldn't go so far as to call it dreamy, it's not soft enough for that, but it is absent.
Normally Adam is very clearly in the here and now, and the force of that focus is part of why I think folks consistently describe him as intense. He is relentlessly present.
But in this, it looks like he's a million miles away, caught gazing on some inner landscape, the outside world reduced to a haze. It doesn't have the stormy intensity of his classic resting Hades face; with only the gentlest of rumples in the center of his brow, the muscles around his eyes, in his cheeks, and around his mouth and chin are all completely at ease. There's not even his usual tiny downward creases at the corners of his mouth that indicate the infant stages of a smile or frown.
And yet, for all that it's so calm, this is still an intense expression; it's just that the intensity is focused inward.
Photo used for reference was taken by Michael Nagle on 2 Dec 2019, for an article published in the LA Times in Jan 2020, with thanks to
feedingtherats for sharing it with us. About 13.5 hrs of drawing time for this one. There was so much detail in the reference it felt like a disservice to not at least try to capture most of it. I was delighted to get to paint the fine threads of silver shot through his hair; we don't get to see them very often, but he'd been wearing wigs for his turn as Henry in "Annette" and obviously hadn't gotten his hair colored in several months. They're still subtle enough that you really have to look to find them, but they're there, along with the faint lines where his face creases when he dimples.
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Date: 2021-11-01 08:26 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2021-11-06 03:58 pm (UTC)From: