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Figuring out face shape and collars by playing around with lines

mktitsworth

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So I've decided I'm going to have some Hamilton shirts made at the beginning of next month. I've gone through fabrics and think I've decided, and now I'm thinking about collars.

There's plenty of back and forth about spread and other bits of thing going on with that, but something that I've seen come up multiple times is the question of face shape. There's a link here about which different collars suit which different face shape, but my curiosity was then about how to go about figuring said face shape out and what would look best.

As a scientist, I get these sorts of curious bugs all the time, and since this one is pertinent to some set of purchases I plan to make, I figured this might be a good time to do so. I also figured I'd share here, since it was pretty simple to do and this HOWTO might be useful for other folks around here. I've wrapped it in a
ffffuuuu.gif
tag for those who are interested so as not to drive off those only interested in the end result because I really would like some feedback on collar spreads. Thanks!

Anyhow, getting to it...

The first thing to do was to pic a fit with two things: A) a good, straight on angle at my head, and B) a mostly full body shot that shows the v of the lapel area in good contrast. Also, it was definitely nice to work with larger images. Going with what I had immediately on hand, I chose this:

5681274356_eef0fc189a_z.jpg


Next, it was time to grab GIMP again. This is probably a good time to say: I'm not a graphics guy. I use GIMP for image analysis of things like nuclear emulsion chamber photo plates and I'm decent with the filters I need, but beyond that I'm pretty rudimentary. To whit, if one of the graphics guys here wants to take this and turn it into something more expansive, that would be awesome.

The first thing you do after opening the pic is add a new layer. This is where you'll work. The next thing to do was to mark the outline of my face, hair, neck, shoulders, and the v of the jacket. This is pretty easy to do in gimp. You take the pencil or paintbrush tool pick your starting spot, and then click shift while tracing the outline. Worked like a champ. I also did one where I did not grab the v so that I can play with lapel roll lengths later on, but that's irrelevant at the moment. Anyway, after doing all of that I got this:

5739192652_cdbbafb6d0_z.jpg


That looked a bit stark, so I threw in some color based upon the original image. For each piece I just used the dropper tool to grab the color from that point in the original image and then used the bucket fill to add color. Simple stuff. That got me this which really was the starting point:

5738644559_58b399fd10_z.jpg


From here I could start playing with different collar heights and spreads. Once again, the shift-pencil did the job. It was necessary to first pick the height of the collar, so, for my test, I got these three:

5738600643_6fee943315_z.jpg
5738600853_c298f01c3a_z.jpg

5739148692_8da3c51b0c_z.jpg


The color for the shirt area was done in the same way as the others. Personally, I like the height of the second collar out of all of these. From there it was time to construct collars. This was still done with the same shift-pencil bit. I did six different spreads for each collar. As an example, here are some of the spreads for collar two:


5739148522_ba27d21a9d_z.jpg
5739148546_2d91c8b302_z.jpg

5738600949_ca791df64a_z.jpg
5739148602_a8b3b72ac6_z.jpg

5739148636_0d2f972b6d_z.jpg
5738601085_b85ed88252_z.jpg



Personally, I think the two in the middle line look the best, but part of the reason for doing this was to get the SF opinion on that. So what do you guys think?

Also, I was rather surprised. I thought I had a longer jaw line, but apparently it's pretty square and chiseled.
 

Ivar

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Cool experiment. I like the middle-right one the best, followed by the one on the bottom left. Not a huge fan of the top ones: too Pitti Uomo.
 

Mrshinyredplanet

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I'm feeling the bottom left the most. The top ones make your face look too short, in my opinion.
 

acecow

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Good job! I think it's pretty apparent that the shape of the collar affects the perception of one's face. You chose the height of the collar right. I think the 2nd, 3rd and 4th collars suit you best. 5 star thread.
 

NAMOR

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Originally Posted by acecow
Good job! I think it's pretty apparent that the shape of the collar affects the perception of one's face. You chose the height of the collar right. I think the 2nd and 3rd collars suit you best. 5 star thread.
+5 Stars
 

6stringsakc

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I think the reason your jawline is different from what you've imagined is because the camera seems a bit low. A higher camera, perhaps chin-height, might get the lines a little more true to the actual shape of your face.
 

Don Carlos

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This threak is awesome.
 

alliswell

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Nice job. One comment - your neck appears longer IRL than in the photos. I think you'll need a lower spread IRL than what we're going to pick for you as a result. For instance, drawing #3 looks good to me, but I'd say #4 will look better on you IRL.
 

patrickBOOTH

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I see all of the photos on top of one another so all of this left and right business makes no sense to me.
 

Sotiris

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#4 and #5 for me, in that order.
 

schrag

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Great Thread! I vote either 3 or 4
nod[1].gif


BTW images display in a column for me as well, so I can't ID as per the poll. Could count and assume they're laid out left to right for both top and bottom.
 

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