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The most amazing photo-realistic drawing of Morgan Freeman drawn on an iPad

Alan Gardner121 mins

I have an iPad. I use the ProCreate app. I draw stick figures compared to this:

12 thoughts on “The most amazing photo-realistic drawing of Morgan Freeman drawn on an iPad”

  2. This and Ted Rall the martyr are all over the web. For the life of me I can’t understand any herculean effort like this whose end result is to produce something that is done in the 1/60th of a second it takes to click a shutter. And w/out the video isn’t it just a photo?

  3. I saw this a couple days ago and almost posted it. Mike, my thoughts exactly about the why.

    I’m suspicious that this was done using the photo as a layer. You can’t duplicate stuff like that so accurately unless you’re tracing over it. Especially using your fingers. It’s too perfect. I’m not sure it’s even possible to be that perfect in following every detail using a stylus on an iPad. I overlaid the original onto his, and in many cases it’s pixel perfect, and in most cases, within a couple pixels.

    In a photo with this much detail, I find it hard to believe that on an iPad, you can come that close without having something to trace. Not that this isn’t an impressive piece, it is. But it’s disingenuous to show the video without the photo layer because it makes it seem like it was done entirely on its own. I’m sure like with most brushstroke recording apps, it is only recording the strokes and not the use of any layers involved, unless you can switch off individual layers from being recorded.

    For 200 hours worth of work, he’s gotten a load of free publicity. So maybe that’s the “why.” On the other hand, this skill is of questionable use because, being almost pixel-perfect, isn’t this a copyright infringement of the original photo as a derivative work? The average person, and even most experts, without examining it highly magnified would not be able to say they are different.

  5. It is a fake. As Rick asserted the photo was a layer and the video was probably reversed in order to make it appear as being created when in fact the top layers were erased to reveal the actual photo.

    The MSM picked it up and it got great publicity though!

  6. Near pixel perfection is the nail in the coffin. And I don’t think he traced it, either, I think it is a reversed video of him painting over the original photo. Also, I went to his website and saw some sketches showing very limited understanding of facial anatomy, certainly many levels less than would be required to create something at such a high level…

  8. In 200 hours I could probably learn to draw Denzel Washington holding my pen w/ chop sticks. I just need a contract w/ a big chop sticks company. And a head shot of Denzel.

    Alex: that joke was a worth the ear splitting metal. Thanks.

  9. There are some substantial challenges to this alleged painting?that it is even a painting and that is was created in ProCreate. Here’s a post about it: http://www.sebastiansdrawings.com/post/69093322933/please-dont-cheapen-genuine-artists

    Furthermore, the artist’s website shows illustrations credited to him that are traced from other artists. Specifically, a Hulk drawing is traced from Bryan Hitch’s “The Ultimates” and the time lapse video of the drawing purports that it is created from scratch.

    This man is a phony.

  11. I’m not being catty. A lot of my pals see this or an article in ImagineFX and get an iPad for cartooning or painting before really researching the hardware. A MS Surface Pro 2 (4gb, 128ssd), Wacom feel stylus, and Manga Studio 5 may cost almost twice as much as an iPad Air but you’d get a much more powerful, flexible tool. Use the tool that works for you but do the research first.

  12. I saw a similar demo several years ago, maybe on DeviantArt or somewhere, by a Japanese artist who did a “perfect” painting in Photoshop, supposedly freehand, of a photo of a girl’s face.

    As Rick says, it’s completely impossible to freehand a perfectly proportioned, photo-realistic painting. I would have said so in the discussion forum at the time, but others who made the same assertion were roundly shouted down. Apparently the artist who did it has such a stellar reputation it was widely agreed that he could indeed do a photorealistic rendering so discussion was cut off.

    But really, it’s not only impossible, but where’s the artist’s interpretive power? I don’t believe a genuinely talented artist can turn that off.

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