I was given the folktale below to analysis and illustrate. My initial thought was that the folksong was about a young boy who looks at celebrities and wonders if he’ll ever grow up to be as attractive or like them in any way. I thought into in a more horrible way, as such developing a character who initially would take magazines and cut them up to make what he thought were “perfect faces”. This then manifested into him killing people with what he perceived as desirable features and sewing those features together to create his new face. For this I decided the character had to be some sort of a monster to do something like this, hence why I gave him no original face of his own. The designs of the face masks were somewhat based on the design of the villain Jigsaw, who had his face sliced apart and then stitched back together.
Seen and not seen
He would see faces in movies, on T.V., in magazines, and in books…He thought that some of these faces might be right for him…And through the years, by keeping an ideal facial structure fixed in his mind…Or somewhere in the back of his mind…That he might, by force of will, cause his face to approach those of his ideal…The change would be very subtle…It might take ten years or so…Gradually his face would change its’ shape…A more hooked nose…wider, thinner lips…beady eyes…a larger forehead. He imagined that this was an ability he shared with most other people…They had also molded their faces according to some ideal…Maybe they imagined that their new face would betterSuit their personality…Or maybe they imagined that theirPersonality would be forced to change to fit the new appearance…This is why first impressions are often correct…Although some people might have made mistakes…They may have arrived at an appearance that bears no relationship to them…They may have picked an ideal appearance based on some childish Whim, or momentary impulse…Some may have gotten half-way there, and then changed their minds. He wonders if he too might have made a similar mistake.
