“Maurizio Aprés Ski”
Adam as Maurizio Gucci, his hair dusted with snow, eyes crinkled with good humor behind his aviator glasses as he dimples at us with firmly pressed lips and tightly tucked chin while wearing that beautiful sweater.
Yes, the sweater is practically another character in this portrait.
He’s in a fine good mood here, but this smile is really tight; his lips are pressed together so firmly they’re wrinkled, and while his first couple of dimples are present, it’s not wide enough to show that third one high up on his cheek. It does reach his eyes though, you can see it in the way his lower lids have crept up a bit, and in the way he’s crinkled around the edges.
It’s interesting to see how many tricks they’re using to emphasize the already considerable resemblance that Adam has to the real-life Maurizio. To start with, he’s in a wig; Adam’s natural hair color is quite a bit darker than Gucci’s, and Maurizio had a number of different hairstyles and lengths throughout his life. Next up, the eyes; this is in monochrome, so you can’t see it, but he’s wearing blue contacts. Maurizio’s eyes must have been a very striking feature, because the shade they’ve chosen is so vivid it’s very nearly violet. Another modification was the choice to temporarily pin his ears, which, as someone who loves Adam’s ears, I object to on general principle. At least they’ve chosen to leave his moles as is!
There was some discussion as to whether Adam might also be wearing a prosthetic on his nose, to temper his distinctive bridge, as well as on his chin, to even it out, but I don’t think either is true. Those very 70’s aviator glasses obscure the bridge of his nose pretty well and the tip of his nose is still a familiar shape. It’s hard to see his characteristically deep divots above his nares with the way the shadows fall in this photo, but from ones I’ve seen of them in Milan on 11 Mar, the divots are still there. As for his chin, tucking it so tightly like that presses it back against his neck and gives the illusion that it’s wider. He’s also got all his characteristic freckles and moles on his nose and his chin, and while I think that the makeup department is probably incredible, I also don’t think they’d put his tiny chin moles and scars back.
So many thanks to Lady Gaga for getting our awkward sasquatch to pose for a casual hq promo photo! Many thanks also to @the-adam-driver-files for running up with the super hi-def version, which was, and I cannot emphasize this enough, invaluable.
About 10 hours of drawing time. Switching to a higher def reference halfway through meant I had to, ok I WANTED to, go back and re-do a lot of it, especially his hair, and that slowed me down a bit.
