Narantler's Study: The Faces of (Some) Konoha Boys (The Last Era!)
Hello, I finally finished this project (after years of abandoning it due to uni stuff).
This is my personal headcanon—and you're welcome to disagree, of course—but I use it as a guide whenever I want to draw them realistically! I amalgamate the references to help me picture their overall appearance before tweaking it again to fit the sketch I made.
Without further ado, let's begin!
Naruto: I mostly relied on Kishimoto's semi-realistic portraits of him. Since he's buff, I don’t think he'd have the extreme hollow cheeks (like the others). I originally wanted to use Kota Miura as a reference, but I found his appearance too fierce; I prefer the soft, masculine face of Korean actor Wonbin.
Sasuke: I had a hard time figuring out his face, and I feel like the references I used don't really convey what I had in mind; veteran Chinese actor Yan Yikuan actually had the closest face to the level of androgyny I wanted for Sasuke.
Shikamaru: Unlike Sasuke (and later Sai), Shikamaru falls into the same category as Naruto—both look more Asian. His father is often drawn as rugged, and because of that, I hc him having higher facial bone mass (Sasuke's is as high, but he's not malnourished, which is why it's not as noticeable) (JK!). I think he's a typical 80s pretty, like Paul Anthony Kelly but Asian.
Sai: His face screams peak K-Pop boy group beauty standard. If I could add more references, I would mention TVXQ's Jaejoon or NCT's Taeyong. Oh, and since Ino found resemblance between him and Sasuke, I think the big difference lies in Sai's overall more feminine face.
(Another HC I should've talked abt IN ANOTHER TIME but wtv)
Sasuke clearly mogged the rest during their teenage years. Yet, in their 20s (and adulthood), Naruto and Shikamaru are the type of guys who grow up into their looks. Sasuke remained Sasuke, and Sai aged quite as gracefully, but those two’s changes surprised many people the most. If most Konohan are asked which one they find handsome, the answers vary depending on each person's type (although Sasuke still won in the end, at least it's not a high-diff win)
Further side note (more of an analysis):
Honestly, I've never understood the endless debate about Naruto's ethnicity. Naruto isn't white, I agree, but he also might not look entirely "Asian" (if what most people even refer to as Asian is exclusively East Asian, but for the sake of this study, yeah let’s use the term in that way).
In Japan itself, people's facial structures are slightly different due to the historical trajectory of the Jomon, the ancestors of the Ainu who had European-like features. They inhabited much of the country before the Yayoi, rice farmers from Korea with more Asian-like facial features, settled later and dominated Japan. Despite this, the Jomon still maintain their influence in both northern and southern Japan. This is why some Japanese people don't look as "Asian":their genes have mixed over time, leading to the diversity of appearances in modern Japan.
However, I like to maintain canonicity in my works (there's a reason why I used only a few caucasian/wasian references); therefore, the extent to which I emphasize the differences could be explained by this picture:
(Yes, I read the Webtoon and watched the show!) Both looks are distinguishable, but one can still tell if they're Asian. Eunwoo—the guy on the right—has the face I always choose whenever I have to draw big-eyed characters like Ino, Sakura, and Tsunade, whom many people tend to hc as Caucasian/European. For small-eyed characters like Kiba, Kankurou, or Darui, Seojun—the guy on the left—is how I imagine them to look.
Congratulations, you've reached this far! Thank you so much for the dedication (I'm touched, really!) AND SEE YOU ON THE NEXT POSTS!!
