A very impressive likeness
March 21, 2017 5:33 PM   Subscribe

 
lol they look like horrible experimentations in taxidermy
posted by Foci for Analysis at 5:38 PM on March 21, 2017


That's horrifying. I wonder if the kid just thought "wow, I am terrible at this."
posted by AFABulous at 5:42 PM on March 21, 2017 [11 favorites]


OK, mostly creepy, but the last one gave me an 'uncanny valley' shiver.
posted by hank at 5:48 PM on March 21, 2017 [3 favorites]


"Kill ...me."
posted by leotrotsky at 5:49 PM on March 21, 2017 [11 favorites]


I just want the lion to be happy
posted by notquitemaryann at 6:07 PM on March 21, 2017 [3 favorites]


To be fair, bikes are hard to draw.

Lions aren't easy either.
posted by ckape at 6:12 PM on March 21, 2017 [10 favorites]


oh my gosh, those bikes are gorgeous, ckape.
posted by AFABulous at 6:17 PM on March 21, 2017


Mixed feelings about this. In a different context (for instance, it's not his kid), this could be perceived as mocking the artwork.
posted by davebush at 6:26 PM on March 21, 2017 [2 favorites]


lol they look like horrible experimentations in taxidermy

The fact these only look like taxidermy experiments is, I think, a mark against the project. I want some real life creepy sausage cats.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 6:38 PM on March 21, 2017 [2 favorites]


OMG I love these! Thanks!
posted by freakazoid at 6:57 PM on March 21, 2017 [3 favorites]


These are fantastic. The lion one reminds me a lot of Ecce Homo (restored).
posted by mochapickle at 7:01 PM on March 21, 2017 [1 favorite]


I do feel like there's an element of mockery to this that's, underneath the happy faces, kind of harshly derisive.

Oh, wait. I'm projecting.

I have a 6yo.
posted by gurple at 7:15 PM on March 21, 2017 [4 favorites]


I like the idea behind this (just as I like similar projects, where professional artists redraw the monster designs kids send in, or the people who make stuffed toys from kids' drawings) but this just feels ... not as charitable as it should be. I feel like the "real" examples are a bit too far away from the son's intentions, or something -- maybe a bit too exaggerated about how unrealistic things are (I think about the misshaped wheels on the car and bike, for instance).

I do want to think this was done from the spirit of love and maybe the son loves seeing his drawings in this context. But I also know this is why a lot of kids decide they can't be artists, so ... I don't know.

(I find almost all kids' drawings to be such a pure expression of delight and joy and I wish I could get that back.)
posted by darksong at 7:23 PM on March 21, 2017 [5 favorites]


I think it's fun and positive. As a kid I would have been thrilled to see my ideas executed so clearly. Go, Dad!
posted by wenestvedt at 7:27 PM on March 21, 2017 [4 favorites]


After showing this to my kids, now they want me to photoshop the pictures they draw like this.
posted by zsazsa at 7:39 PM on March 21, 2017 [7 favorites]


I like these. I wish they were on a site that had a name other than 'sadanduseless'.

This reminds me of when my son drew a picture of me for Father's Day. It was a pretty good likeness... except that I was forest green (He's colorblind).
posted by dfm500 at 7:43 PM on March 21, 2017 [2 favorites]


Somewhere out there is a planet where all creatures have evolved sidefaces.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 9:26 PM on March 21, 2017 [4 favorites]


This is awesome. Worthy of four gold stars and a check-plus-plus.
posted by Lyme Drop at 9:29 PM on March 21, 2017 [1 favorite]


Aww, I think they're adorable. Look at the cute butterfly! They're happy and sweet.
posted by Klaxon Aoooogah at 9:36 PM on March 21, 2017 [1 favorite]


Aaaaaaaaaaaauuuuggghhhhh
posted by Going To Maine at 9:37 PM on March 21, 2017


Reminds me of a bit from Mad Magazine a zillion years ago in which kids drew the toys they wanted for Christmas, and Mad made the toys based on their drawings. Check it out! However, the "kids'" drawings were obviously made by adult artists pretending to be kids, so it isn't nearly as bizarre and surreal as in this piece.
posted by ejs at 10:22 PM on March 21, 2017


That seagull is especially amazing.
posted by deludingmyself at 10:26 PM on March 21, 2017 [1 favorite]


A dad turns his six-year-old son's drawings into reality.

Oh. In Photoshop.
posted by fshgrl at 10:36 PM on March 21, 2017 [1 favorite]


well, it would be much more terrifying if it was real reality
posted by AFABulous at 10:46 PM on March 21, 2017


Since when is Photoshopping things turning then into reality?
posted by Sintram at 10:48 PM on March 21, 2017 [2 favorites]


Since when is Photoshopping things turning then into reality?

Well, only if you have the correct magical and/or cursed computer.
posted by ckape at 1:49 AM on March 22, 2017 [2 favorites]


This is a fun idea and well executed and I'm sure Dad & Son have all the implications worked out and no one feels they are mocking or being mocked.

But it does irritate me how the childlike wonder of the early years is wrung out of almost everybody by the insistence on making drawings realistic. Walk down the hall of any kindergarten and the walls are ablaze with incredible colorful art of everything; go up a few floors to the fifth and sixth graders and it's all pencil work efforts to draw a shoe or a wine bottle or something, and some are "good at it" and some aren't, but by and large they are all lifeless. It's homework, not play. So we are taught to lose the desire to just noodle around with pen, pencil, crayon, paint & paper, without proving anything, which is a real tragedy.
posted by chavenet at 4:13 AM on March 22, 2017 [4 favorites]


Maybe it just speaks to my daughter's perfectionist streak, but I suspect she would have been devastated if I had done this to her drawings. I'm sure that this particular kid must get some enjoyment out of it, or else the Dad wouldn't keep doing it (though I have know some asshole Dads, so...).
posted by Rock Steady at 4:47 AM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]


Sintram: Since when is Photoshopping things turning then into reality?

So I think Sintram needs to have look at this other FPP.
posted by wenestvedt at 5:42 AM on March 22, 2017


Wonder which artist gets top billing on the refrigerator.
posted by klarck at 5:48 AM on March 22, 2017 [2 favorites]


So much nope in such a small space.
posted by signal at 5:55 AM on March 22, 2017


I like the giraffe.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 6:13 AM on March 22, 2017


Yep, I don't usually like This Sort Of Thing very much but the giraffe made me do a full Ugly Snort. Magnificent.
posted by ominous_paws at 10:03 AM on March 22, 2017


That lion thing is terrifying.

I'm kind of on the side of "maybe this is not so cool" (because mockery? and maybe suppression of non-realistic legitimate art forms?) but I still enjoyed it, so I don't know.

You spend enough time on MetaFilter and everything gets complicated and deep.
posted by epanalepsis at 11:13 AM on March 22, 2017


As a kid I would have been thrilled to see my ideas executed so clearly.

That's where I hit the wall with this: is it clear execution? Kids start making blobby strokes, kind of a gestural drawing before it evolves into hard outlines but those weird forms have meanings as any young artist will be happy to explain to you. I've always been super curious whether kids actually see what they render or if their imagination sort of butters it over. Is the elephant misshapen in the original drawing when Dom looks at it? At some point Dom is going to look at the herd and see one isn't quite alike, right?

Closest I've ever come is wanting to make a RL copy of my daughter's pirate/keep out flag because it was mad fierce, especially for a six-year-old (skull + bones, pistol, flying bullets. dagger).

Little kid art is great because so much of it involves happy smiling things.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 1:41 PM on March 22, 2017


I'm reminded of those nightmare-inducing Quiznos sponge-monkey commercials. Warning: horrifying.
posted by carmicha at 7:48 AM on March 23, 2017


Count me in as part of the camp that doesn't think stuff like this is cool. I remember drawing when I was a kid and being aware of my limitations, but not feeling bad because there was an understanding that my drawings were representations to be interpreted with a modicum of imagination, if only because I didn't color them, for example. To me things like these read like "this blobby thing is what my kid intended, this is how they see the world." Nah pops, I just don't know foreshortening yet. If an adult showed me reworkings of my drawings in this vein, using them as an exact blueprint, I would have to question them having an imagination at all, and they'd just be driving home the point that I was way off in my drawings, because that's not what I intended to communicate. It's taking paraphrase as gospel.
posted by infinitelives at 10:35 AM on March 23, 2017


The aforementioned monsters.
posted by 0rison at 6:25 PM on March 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


This child is trolling their father - these pictures are clearly all of dicks.
posted by SassHat at 11:44 PM on March 23, 2017


Additionally, if someone had done this "for" me as a child I would have been horrified to learn that a) my drawings didn't look like the things they were meant to look like b) they looked horrifying and c) everyone knew this except for me. Ughhhh hard pass.
posted by SassHat at 11:45 PM on March 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


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