Something for Auburn and Mona's "Ardhanarishvara"

[anna_luna]

For those of you who haven't read "Ardhanarishvara", it is a wonderful fanfic by auburnnothenna and monanotlisa, where an advanced alien civilization, in order to further enlighten their new business partners, had several members of Sheppard's team genderswitched.

Now this inspired a whole lot of fanart by me and other assorted people.

And now, since Mona's in the hospital and I'd like to make her feel a tiny bit better (if you want to make something for her, there is a community called ficformona), I made these:

Preview:



ETA: I have added a second version of the manip and the graphic after I followed some of icarusancalion's suggestions.



Original version:



New version:



Just the Manip.

I figured, maybe I was going about this business of genderswitching the wrong way: Instead of trying to make John into a woman, maybe I should be trying to make a woman into John. So I used a picture from 'Resident Evil II' and proceeded to give her some of John's features. I felt like a bit of a Frankenstein, adding the nose and the eyes, the shape of the face, the ear and of course, the hair.







This is from the bar scene in Part Eleven.

Comments

[fatuorum.livejournal.com]

You used Valentine! Very nice choice (okay, now I want a full body shot, guns, boots and all ;)) and she looks great. Heck, the whole piece looks good. I'm hard pressed to see where changes start, but she still looks different enough to work. Was it easier to work backwards from a female's face?

[anna_luna]

I think in this case it was easier to work backwards because she looks a *lot* like Joe Flannigan. I was watching Resident Evil II and I was struck by the resemblance (or maybe not resemblance but rather "That's what female!John would look like"). Both the nose and mouth are similar enough that when you manip, Joe's don't look unnatural. Also I think that starting out with a woman, you minimize the risk of ending up with boywhore!John (as per my previous experience). The skin tone and the shape of the face were trickier, because she has these *very* high cheekbones that Joe doesn't, but I thinks it's easier to do than reshaping Joe's jawline... am I making sense?
Bottom line: I think it is easier this way if you start out with a woman that looks like your man.
We should continue to manip until we reach a definite result ;)

[anna_luna]

Also, thanks a lot for saying my weird graphic looks good, I'm glad you liked it.

[aurora]

Jill! /Resident Evil glee

I love John's drowsy expression in the second one. And Rodney being all concerned. :X

[anna_luna]

:) John is *so* drugged in the second one (he actually looks more stoned than I originally intended) and poor Rodney has to deal with him.

I'm glad you liked them! Thanks!

[dar-jeeling.livejournal.com]

Oh, you tried it the other way round! Looks nice! I'd love to see the original.

[anna_luna]

Okay, by original do you mean the original Resident Evil II pic or the finished manip before I made it into a graphic?

Also, thanks a lot! I'm glad you think it looks ok, you're the one that started this manipping madness after all :D

[dossier.livejournal.com]

I love the bar scene, and Ronon! Dreads!

I put the two images side by side, and I have to say that is both the most *creepy* (in a good way) and incredible thing ever. It's insane to flip back and forth between them, and yes, that way the changes are obvious, but just looking at the John version? I absolutely couldn't tell, it just looked like John. as a girl. *is totally blown away*

Girl Ronon is exactly like I visualized from the story, and somehow also reminds me of someone I used to know long ago and far away--very familiar.

[anna_luna]

:) Female!Ronon... Female!John... I'm not sure what this says about me.

I'm glad you think they work, it was harder than I originally thought to come up with female version of them.

[monanotlisa.livejournal.com]

Oh my God, Anna Luna, how are you so awesome??

*SQUEE*

Seriously, that's just fantastic -- the first one does look amazingly natural; I read your explanations to Fatuorum and kept nodding: Very good idea, and a very cool result!

And aww, the second one, the drawing! Rodney coming to help a bewildered Sheppard, who by the way looks really lovely -- female and pretty and curvy in the right places despite the fact all the bits that would show gender are obscured. Then, RONON DISTRACTING THE GUY! I love how you gave Ronon the kind of forward grace that makes it clear she is just telling him she'll kill him if he does as much as move. *g*

Thank you so very much. I feel myself healing much faster already! (Seriously, I'm much better already, and will hopefully continue to get real well real soon.)

[anna_luna]

I'm so glad you liked them! And I'm glad you think girl!John looks natural, I'm sort of disproportionally proud of it.

I also love drawing in this universe, actually my first ever drawn Ronon was a female!Ronon for you (which unfortunately I lost) closely followed by my second Ronon (male and lost with the first Ronon), so this is Ronon Nr. 3. The weird mark on his hip is *supposed* to be a tattoo, but it is so small it looks like a blotch. I figured that Ronon would look casual while delivering death threats and *leaning* on the guy, I'm glad you think it fits with the scene.

John and Rodney are always a joy to draw, and female!John especially, I'm kind of in love with her athletic female curves.

I'm also very glad you're feeling better! I don't know you, but your fic gave me many hours of happy reading and subsequent drawing, so it's the least I could do. If time permits, I'll draw you something for the next chapter as part of the "Get Well Soon"-package.

[poisonshock.livejournal.com]

lol love these, esp the last pic, though i haven't read that fic, mainly because the author doesn't specify what pairings there are and maybe it's my loss =( , but i'm a mcshep otp girl.

[anna_luna]

:) I'm glad you liked them. The last one is from a scene where John was drugged in a bar and was sort of seduced by this man and then Ronon threatened to kill him(the man) while Rodney led John away.

The fic so far has only McShep as a pairing though there are hints of others and possibly threesome or team relationships. Still the way John and Rodney interact is one of the best renditions I've read so far, definitely worth looking into.

[springwoof.livejournal.com]

the manip is very sophisticated and cool-looking. i like the dna strands and the "ghost" image of John's male self. very nice. I also like your drawing very much. Girl!Shep still looks like Shep, and a girl. I adore Girl!Ronon, she looks both very cute & also deadly. :-)

wags, sw

[anna_luna]

:) Thanks a lot! I'm both the manipping and the graphicking afterward turned out ok. I started out with male and female John and then started adding stuff and masks.

I'm glad you think my drawing of girl!Shep makes her justice, she's so much fun to draw and so was Ronon, who still has like 20 blades in her hair.

[auburnnothenna.livejournal.com]

The manip is glorious. I love the overall color values, and think that - according to your comments above - you've found the right technique, with maniping a female to be John, rather than trying to feminize JF's features. The DNA strand, the ghost image, it's a really, really successful piece of artwork. And, unlike many manips, it doesn't make me have that weird uncomfortable, wrongwrongwrong feeling.

And the second one is just fun. Very nice the way it looks like Ronon is watching Rodney and Sheppard, even while she'd threatening to kill Gigolo Boy if he so much as squeaks.

I'm not even sick and you've made me feel better.

[anna_luna]

:) I'm glad you liked it and especially that I made you feel better, there is so little we fans can do to thank the writers.

Following icarusancalion's suggestions, I tried to maker her look a bit more like John so now there are two versions of both the graphic and the manip in the post.

I'm especially proud that you liked my fanart. Ronon is *so* watching both John and Rodney and fully intends to kill "Gigolo Boy" if he makes a sound (I secretly think she would have hurt him if he *had* laid a hand on John).

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Good approach, going from female to male. I think it's gonna work.

I do art betas for some friends, so I've been eyeing the art. You've done a good job with the cheekbones, shape of the face, neck and ears. This kind of subtle shifting of faces is painstaking and difficult to do. I'm impressed.

I hope you don't mind some fine-tuning (and this is fine-tuning, not criticism and doesn't detract from my appreciation of your beautiful work).

It's the eyes and lips that don't quite work yet.

The upper lip dent needs to be a little broader, and her lower lip full, like Sheppard's. The upper lip has a little too much of a cupid's bow. The lips going from male to female wouldn't get less full (I know some transexuals and male lips tend to be thinner, not fuller).

The stoy mentions that Sheppard's eyes are the same, and if you look at the outer corners she doesn't have John's dramatic downward upper eyelid slant. I wish I had a pencil to draw it here. The line of his eyes dent a little closer to his/her nose, too, which gives Sheppard more of an intense (if tired) look.

Other than that, yeah. *nods* Very nice.

Icarus

[anna_luna]

Thanks a lot!

Actually I spent like a day on the eyes and still I think he looks kind of either sad or drugged. I tried putting them closer together, but then he looked really unattractive (closer together eyes, while acceptable on a man, are disastrous in a female face) so I compromised in order to make her look something like John but still beautiful. For the John features I used This picture from beaniesheppard the slant is there, if not really as pronounces as in other pictures, I kept the line of the upper eye, but couldn't get the wrinkles in without making her look like an alien monster. Same thing with the mouth, what actually happened is that John's mouth is not only fuller, but *bigger* so if I sized it to fit horizontally, it was actually less full that Jill's vertically, and if fit vertically she looked like the Joker.
I still have to keep working on my manipping technique, but it's encouraging that you noticed the same things I wasn't entirely satisfied with and where I compromised. Thanks a lot for taking the time.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I think you can be subtle. Rather than map Sheppard's lips onto her (he has full lips, especially for a guy), which, yeah I pictured it yesterday and went, ouch -- I would just broaden the dent beneath her nose and upper lip. With pastels I would just use the tip of my pinky and widen it.

Then I would go back to the model's original lower lip (on the original which you provided above). Her lips actually look more like Sheppard's than the photo-manipped version. You've gone for too much beauty and have lost some of the toughness that made you look at her pic and think "hey, that's Sheppard."

The eyes, you don't need to move them closer. I'm recommending a line that slightly changes the shape of the upper eyelid, as well as shading on the inner eye corner. Can you print out your photomanip and do some hand work, then scan it back in? These kinds of changes would be easier to render convincingly by hand and then soften and smooth in Photoshop.

Icarus

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

*clicks that photo of Joe Flannigan*

God, he's beautiful, isn't he? It's that sleepy upper eyelid that does it, that gives him the bedroomy-puppydog look.

It starts just over the inside arch of his eye and almost drapes like fabric, the line extending well beyond the outer corner of his eye in a downward slope. But his eyes sparkle because of the color, the warm brown radiating in center of the green-blue.

Wow. He has exquisite skin, too. No way he's 38.

*hands up, takes off the art-beta cap* Personally, I'm trained to draw, but photomanips drive me batty. I wouldn't have the patience for this.

Icarus

[anna_luna]

:) Thanks a lot for the wonderful sugestions! Here's a new version:
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y113/Anna_Luna/ard22copy.jpg

I chaged both the mouth and the eye and hopefully she looks more like John now while remaining beautiful. I think this is as far as this manip will go for the time being (as I'm both satisfied and fed up with it).

Now if only I could do Ronon... now *that* is a challenge.

[anna_luna]

:) Thanks a lot for the wonderful suggestions! Here's a new version:
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y113/Anna_Luna/ard22copy.jpg

I changed both the mouth and the eye and hopefully she looks more like John now while remaining beautiful. I think this is as far as this manip will go for the time being (as I'm both satisfied and fed up with it).

Now if only I could do Ronon... now *that* is a challenge.

[anna_luna]

I also made a new version of the graphic using the new manip, unfortunately the modified slant is not apparent because of the mask I put on the picture to give it the yellowish look.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y113/Anna_Luna/Ardhanishvara02b.jpg

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I was more helpful than annoying.

Wow, she's really got the toughness in the new version.

You're right, it's less apparent in the graphic. But the eye-tilt shows, as well as changing the shape of her mouth is closer to Sheppard's. Some people might not notice the subtle shifts, but it's definitely more Sheppard.

And why isn't all of Atlantis falling over themselves to get closer to the femme Sheppard? o.O

Icarus

[anna_luna]

It's the challenge, I suppose, and the fanfic. Me personally I wanted to see if I *could* make John into a woman. Besides, that man is just too beautiful (I'm a McKay girl myself but I can appreciate the pretty).

You have a good eye for details, thanks for taking the time to help me out.

[looking4tarzan.livejournal.com]

Woah...the manip-thing.....woaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahhahahah


and love the drawing!

[anna_luna]

:) Thanks a lot! I'm glad you liked it! It took forever to make the manip! The drawing on the other hand, was a joy to make.