Hank Rearden Sketch

[Elysium]

So I had originally attempted to capture John Galt's youthful, devoid of pain, fear, and guilt, confident look, and it turns out that backfired. I looked at my drawing, and it looked more like what I imagined Hank Rearden would look like, best described by Galt when Galt met Dagny on the train track (?) toward close to the end of the book:

"I had never seen Hank Rearden, only pictures of him in the newspapers.

I knew that he was in New York, that night...

And then I saw him... I caught a glimpse of him as he stood with his hand on the door

of his car, his head lifted, I saw the brief flare of a smile ...

a confident smile, impatient and a little amused. And then,

for one instant, I did what I had never done before, what most men wreck

their lives on doing—I saw that moment out of context, I saw the world as he

made it look, as if it matched him, as if he were its symbol—I saw a world of

achievement, of unenslaved energy, of unobstructed drive through purposeful

years to the enjoyment of one's reward.

Anyway, please critique. My girlfriend (who happens to be an art/animation student) has pointed out that the hairline is a little off, and that his neck is done incorrectly, but for the most part, the face is correctly proportioned. (Oh, I should mention that I don't own a scanner; I used a digital camera to capture it onto the computer)

Please have a look:

Henry Rearden.

Edited April 12, 2006 by Elysium

[IAmMetaphysical]

It's pretty good, and your gf is right about the hairline. Just remember that your eyes are in the halfway mark down from the top of your head. You have them up in the top third which makes his head look small. The hairline itself is in the right place, but the top of the head needs to be higher.

[Elysium]

With regard to the "eyes being halfway down from the top of the head," I know that, but as I was using my face in the mirror as a reference, I noticed that if I turned my head up, the proportions changed, and that the eyes should look roughly at the top 1/3 of his head. I think that my error in terms of proportions was not being able to correctly draw from the "head raised" angle.

That being said, I find that it's extremely difficult to capture that confident, impatient, amused smile look. Put another way, I find it's extremely difficult to do justice to Rand's characters in terms of correctly expressing their facial features. Truth be told, I hadn't touched a piece of paper creatively for at least months, so I was pleasantly surprised that it looked decent.

[EC]

I find that it's extremely difficult to capture that confident, impatient, amused smile look.

Use my face as a model. I've been annoying people and baffling people with that look since the days of elementary.

[AMERICONORMAN]

Or me,

they are obviously past "the burst of a smile", but they are amused, and not yet that "without pain, fear, or guilt", but they are very close to my natural expression ... "a secret garden" "over-optimism" "bitterness"; psychologically it is perhaps Hank Rearden that I am most like, in that, we share the same weakness, not knowing how good he really is:

Sincerely,

Jose Gainza

P.S. I must say that the quality is not that great. Also, obviously myself and Rearden are not of the same race.

Edited April 13, 2006 by AMERICONORMAN

[Hal]

Also, obviously myself and Rearden are not of the same race.

I dont think HR's race was specified in the novel, but I could be wrong. With a name like Hank its probably fair to assume he's white, but still.