Let me preface this with I SUCK AT DRAWING LIKENESSES. Other things (strangers on subways, happy trees, my dog, etc…) I don’t suck at as much. This began as a sketch of my daughter Erin, but soon morphed into some other, nameless kid. I started with the general shape of the head. It was good. Got those chubby cheeks and cute double-chin. Next was the hair. It too was good. Wispy. Mostly on top. “The Trump,” as we lovingly call her hairdo. So far we have what I would call the frame. A head with hair, but no face.

Here’s where the sucking began. The shape of the open mouth, smiling was pretty good, but I knew it was only a matter of time before I wrecked it. Not wanting to overwork the delicate mouth I moved onto the nose. This is where it all started going bad. I made a few rogue lines in her delicate nose that immediately made it someone else’s nose. Shrek’s, I think. I decided I would try and fix the Shrek nose later and move onto the eyes. She has really big eyes but I made them just a tad too big. Oh, and too high. The too big part I could live with – heck, if small eyes were a necessity the Japanese Anime field would be broke – it was the too high part that messed it up for me. If I had made them a tad lower than she would have had that much more forehead to work with.

I decided it was still an okay sketch and so I followed it through and finished it, but can no longer refer to it as a sketch of Erin. It’s amazing to me how the wrong nose and eyes a hair too high on the head can give someone a completely different face. If I put my thumb over the Ogre’s nose and huge eyes, it still looks like Erin.

So, anyone want to claim this kid as theirs? It’s still a cute kid, just not mine.