Do you know what you look like? I don’t. You’re just some person reading this. I have no idea what you look like.
I also have no idea what I look like. I’ve seen pictures of myself, and have seen my face on television, but I think if I drew myself it would just be a Cabbage Patch Kid with Steve Buscemi’s face. Wait, I mean a Garbage Pail Kid. Buscemi Face Timmy. That’s my Garbage Pail Kids card.
Wait what was this article supposed to be about?
Bethesda Softworks’ Fallout 4 has a really detailed face-making element and they fit it right into the story in a very relatable way. Your character wakes up in the morning and you get to design their face as they gaze into the mirror and contemplate the futility of existence and toy with the idea of faking their own death to live out their days in a shack in the woods away from the burdens of society. At least that’s what I assume they’re doing. What else would you do with a mirror?
I decided to make a character that looks like me, but anyone who has seen every season of Whitest Kids or met me in person will know that my looks change quite a bit. I often fluctuate in hair length, weight and redness of skin. For my Fallout 4 character I chose to go with the 2013 model, “Fat Goalie Timmy.”
I started with the eyes. My eyes are my most defining feature and they’re goddamned beautiful, so I wanted to get them right. Then, of course, is the black hair which, when paired with my pale and ruddy skin, indicates “Black Irish” descent, which means some of my ancestors were very open-minded about their partners. Height came next. I didn’t try to make him too tall but I didn’t want to make him short like me because that could hinder combat prowess. I’m basically a Hobbit in real life, and I don’t care how much CGI you use, our people can’t fight. Combat prowess is also why I didn’t give my character a massive Cheese Gut to match my own. I don’t even think that’s an option. It was fun to get fat in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas but this is Fallout. This is serious.
And then there’s all the weird little face details. Video games have been really getting into this “face-sculpting” thing and I’m not sure why they do it. Was there some vocal minority that demanded more control over their character’s brow depth? I don’t really care about that stuff but since I was trying to make a Timmy Clone I dove into it. Spoiler alert: I have no idea how deep my brows are. I just tried to approximate my brows, cheeks, nostril width and all these other silly details. Had I stopped to consider the silliness of this task I surely would have suffered an aneurysm.
I finally finished making my dude’s face, and I felt like I had gotten pretty close to my own, so off I went to watch my child get kidnapped (spoiler)!
Here’s what I came up with and a comparison to what I actually look like. I don’t know how to make my character smile and I also don’t know how to NOT smile in real pictures, so my apologies for the discrepancy:
So yeah does that look like me? I can’t really tell.
When I made this guy I didn’t use anything for a reference. I didn’t look at a picture of myself, I didn’t ask someone else how it looked, and I didn’t even ask my daughter for advice because this game is rated “M for Mature” and I totally never have games like this on when she is around. Never. At all. Totally. Anyways, no other opinion informs how this guy looks. This is how my brain interprets my face. This is how Timmy sees Timmy. Or maybe this is how I want to look? Probably a mix of both.
If I had one of my friends or family members come over and make it or even just help me make it, this guy would look totally different. Take for example this Nintendo “Mii” Trevor made of me nine years ago. I found it unrecognizable but everyone else said he nailed it.
What we think we look like and what other people think we look like can be insanely different, and I think which version matters the most to you is a crucial component of your personality. Maybe someone who is much smarter than me (i.e. a scientist, professor or donkey) could look into how self-perception and social perception mold our brain. I don’t mean “if you care what you look like you are or are not a jerk” but I bet it has some sort of deep-seated affect on your entire outlook.
In other words the most important aspect of any video game is your character’s brow depth.
The eyes are nice, right?
You may know Timmy from the sketch group The Whitest Kids U' Know, and you've probably seen him in a gas station buying snacks on his way to do stand-up somewhere.
He's also a huge nerd, as you can see by his Twitter handle:@TimmyIsANerd
