See this young lady?

[theweaselking]

She's airbrushed.


No, I don't mean her picture has been altered. I mean she's airbrushed - created, from whole cloth, with an airbrush. Not an altered photograph.

Comments

[flemco.livejournal.com]

I absolutely do not buy it. This is a hoax.

[jagash.livejournal.com]

Impressive.

[dominitus.livejournal.com]

If true, that is incredibly awesome.

It's so detailed, though, that it's a bit hard to believe.

[icedrake.livejournal.com]

I purchased a comparably detailed piece of airbrush work, about a decade ago. The subject matter was not a human, but the fine lines were definitely there. This is excellent work, and I don't see nay reason to doubt its authenticity.

[dreamshade.livejournal.com]

I dunno. If you really focus on the light patches where the light bounces off her forehead and nose, those look a bit fakey after a moment. But on the other hand, the earrings look REALLY perfect...

[icedrake.livejournal.com]

Maybe this will help convince the doubters.

[chaosrah.livejournal.com]

Hmm, everyone says it's fake in the comments.. If it's real, fucking amazing. But if CGI artists can't get facial expressions correct for realistic looking people, I'm not sure how much hope an airbrush artist has of getting it completely right. It really does look too human.

[cacahuate.livejournal.com]

Nice, but really not on the same level of realism.

[lorelei76.livejournal.com]

Holy shit, those are mad skills. I play with an airbrush when doing mixed media paintings, and airbrushes are a world of pain. If this is legit, I have to bow down to a true master.

His site (http://www.drublair.com/) has some seriously amazing photorealistic work. But this one is out of this world.

[flemco.livejournal.com]

Ha ha ha, nope.

[nonsecateur.livejournal.com]

The guy seems like a legit airbrush artist. If this is fake and is really just a standard retouched photo I'd worry about his reputation from now on. (Unless he views any publicity as good publicity. Hmm...)

[flemco.livejournal.com]

In the extended link, I was more focused on her dress.

Sorry, but no. This is fake.

[flemco.livejournal.com]

Really?

No reason to doubt its authenticity?

How about "because if a couple of no-talent dickheads faked this, they'd get worldwide renown?"

[flemco.livejournal.com]

This one is fucking fake.

And in three or four weeks, when this is exposed as a fake, I fully expect the whining on the internet to reach new levels.

[flemco.livejournal.com]

Gosh, damage to one's reputation has never caused anyone to fly in the face of common sense and risk their artistic reputation.

It's fake. Utterly. Easier to construct the "making of" images by deconstructing the original photograph than to actually pull off what this artist claims to be able to do. FAKE.

[nonsecateur.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it doesn't seem that real. I know nothing about retouching, but at best it strikes me as a good going over of an existing photograph. (Publicity stunt for cosmetics company?)

[heraldofchaos.livejournal.com]

no no no...

sorry...

Painters have been reproducing realistic looking pieces for century's...

(Mona Lisa's smile / any of the good still life's, any one?)

nice to see Digital has finally, possibly caught up to pigment on canvas from the Renaissance...

[lorelei76.livejournal.com]

Uhh. Right. Okaaay there. How about you calm it down over there and take a chill pill. Try not to choke on it.

If it's fake, it's fake, and boo to the interwebs. I'm just saying if the guy did it for real, then more power to him. His other work is pretty freaking amazing - the guy's got SOME credibility.

[heraldofchaos.livejournal.com]

wow...

i hope that digital has finaly step up to the artistic plate...

(see above comment for details)

and if it... is a fake...

then Ce'la vie... "Art" is a lot of what you explain, not what you do.

(yes I know i fucked up the french there, i don't care, its not my first language.)

[autobotsrollout.livejournal.com]

Given that the portrait appeared on the cover of the airbrushing community's largest and most important magazine, you're essentially accusing the magazine of perpetrating a fraud. And doing so twice.

See also Dru Blair's comparison of a different photo-to-painting here. But presumably that is also fake.

There's also the fact that Blair teaches workshops on how to do this. Presumably all of his students are similarly in on it. So we've got Blair, his studio mates, the models, his students, Air Brush Action Magazine... man, this is a lot of trouble to go to for the purpose of an internet hoax... oh, let's not forget his client list, considering he's done photorealistic artwork for Budweiser and Coca-Cola...

[autobotsrollout.livejournal.com]

And this is a much better version of the article, incidentally.

[mejoff.livejournal.com]

oops.

[dglenn.livejournal.com]

I know you said you don't care that you got it wrong here, but just in case you'd like to know for future reference: «C'est la vie.» (If «est» (="is") didn't start with a vowel, that «C'» would've been «Ce ». If another French phrase that crops up in English contexts is familiar to you, «N'est-ce pas?» (="Is that not so?" or more succintly, "Right?"), there's that «ce» again.)

I screw up French too, but in different ways. *sigh*

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

Photorealism is an established, albeit small, genre of airbrushing art; I read up on it twenty years ago. This isn't new. And I don't think this example is fake, myself, just on the leading edge of the quality bell curve.

-- Steve loves how Photoshop brings out the paranoia in people.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

It's not digital. It's airbrush - physical paint on physical canvas.

[anivair.livejournal.com]

to be fair, nobody needed photoshop to be paranoid about this. Photo*graphs* did just fine.

but i agree, I don't see any proof that it's fake except it's "too good". And that's not really a valid criticism of photorealism.

[anivair.livejournal.com]

digital is the wrong word. that's not digital art, that's airbrushing, according to the article. Which just makes it art, art.

[anivair.livejournal.com]

damn. beat me to it.

[chrisrw109.livejournal.com]

How about "because if a couple of no-talent dickheads faked this, they'd get worldwide renown?"

Yes.. the same caveat that makes every possible reported accomplishment on the 'net fake.

They guy is obviously not a no-talent dickhead since he's fairly well known. I think you're gonna need some proof other than 'it's too good'.

[ipslore.livejournal.com]

Actually, from what I understand, the problem CG artists have is making movement look natural, not still images.

[elffin.livejournal.com]

But, it's not digital. It's physical paint. Applied with a variety of tools. Often an airbrush.

At least that is the claim.

[blucrowlaughing.livejournal.com]

Ah the photo realism movement, still alive and well and making my palms itch for a big ass sumi brush.

[hypatiasghost.livejournal.com]

But this is ooooooold. I've seen this before, seems like a more than a few months ago, with the same claim, and with lots of detailed pictures of the process. Maybe on boingboing? I can't find it now -- but it was the same set of pictures that's featured on this blogspammy-blog that is linked to, with details about the artist.

It's made the rounds before, so if it were fake, there'd be someone with a link to the reveal of fakeness, rather than people with links to the artists' websites and classes wherein he teaches the art.

I mean, I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'.

[ice-hesitant.livejournal.com]

Traced. If you want extreme realism, you trace. Photoshop conveniently provides a hide layer tool that allows for all the fancy in-progress screenshots.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Airbrushed.

Physical paint, physical canvas. No photoshop. No "screenshots", no undo function, no layers. Not digital.

[ice-hesitant.livejournal.com]

Sorry, misread it. Why would anyone want to spend this much effort on vulgarity without Photoshop? Even faking it takes undue effort.

I still think it's faked, though, whether they used a light table or print-outs or an overlay grid with a reference photo or something else.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

[heraldofchaos.livejournal.com]

paint on canvas...

tools on pixels...

what makes the other one more legitimate than the other? they both take skill...

art, again... is art.

granted, this might all be a huge hoax... but even hoaxes are art.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Nothing was said about legitimacy. Only about ability to undo, save mid-work and apply computer processing power to the result.

It's not a hoax, unless *the* main airbursh mags *and* the people who've watched that guy *and* the people who take his classes on how to do it are not only all in on it, but also all consistently able to maintain the hoax for months and months after the magazine comes out. Jay's just being bitchy.

[flemco.livejournal.com]

Given that the portrait appeared on the cover of the airbrushing community's largest and most important magazine, you're essentially accusing the magazine of perpetrating a fraud. And doing so twice.

As always: what do they have to gain from such a fraud? Well, a lot, really.

See also Dru Blair's comparison of a different photo-to-painting here. But presumably that is also fake.

Not really. On close inspection, that one really does look airbrushed.

There's also the fact that Blair teaches workshops on how to do this. Presumably all of his students are similarly in on it. So we've got Blair, his studio mates, the models, his students, Air Brush Action Magazine... man, this is a lot of trouble to go to for the purpose of an internet hoax... oh, let's not forget his client list, considering he's done photorealistic artwork for Budweiser and Coca-Cola...

The old "he's famous so it must be true" argument?

Yes, because nothing fake is ever pimped out to a gullible populace. [further reading]

You are 100% correct in that my argument boils down to "it's too good." To not use a layman's condensed description, I find it highly unlikely that the picture in question involved an airbrush artist actually painting minutae such as skin pores and moles, earring jewel facets and the texture of her dress when you could hoax the fuck out of people using photoshop in about 1/50th of the time and effort. My suspicions are compounded by the fact that I cannot find ANY high-res photos of this work in progress, which you could figure the artist would allow to shut up naysayers such as myself. Fuck, if anyone claimed my art was fake, I'd debunk the skeptic pretty damned quickly in that manner. Then again, most of my serious art IS photo manips.

Do I have proof? No. Do you? Not really. I am stating that I have a very strong gut hunch that this is fake as hell.

[flemco.livejournal.com]

Shit, you know what? I just did an experiment, and I totally take it back. This shit is 100% BONA FIDE.

[maximkovalenko.livejournal.com]

Agreed> Photoshopped, yes. Airbrushed? No.

[flemco.livejournal.com]

So why is the photoshopped version of the picture the one showing up on the canvas?

O WAIT