Alright Ghost Fan Artists, this is for you. Seeing as we have a papa with a real human face and not a silicone one I have to talk about this, if you're trying to capture his likeness and finding something isn't looking right like I was, here's a psychotically detailed tour of his face and the parts I think are worth noting when it comes to drawing his beautiful visage.
Tobias Forge has a really interesting nose, he has what's known as a bifid nasal tip, or a cleft nose tip, it's a rare thing that occurs early in fetal development where the tip of the nose segments into two, it's similar to a cleft chin, but for the nose. A butt nose, if you will, and I mean that affectionately.
Here's some examples of a few different noses with a bifid nasal tip
You'll notice them by the distinctive line or cleft down the center.
Sometimes they'll be more of a pronounced ala (the edges of the nose where it meets the cheek).
In some pictures of Tobias it's more subtle
But in others it's more obvious, it seems to change depending on the lighting and probably some other unknown factors
But importantly for all you fan artists out there, the Papa V paint seems to really highlight this center line
This kind of nose is really interesting and kind of rare so I wanna see that shit represented! Draw me that little cleft line, show me that little cute butt nose!!
So, connecting from the bifid nasal tip to the mouth is his philtrum, which is noteworthy because it's fairly broad, giving him a wide Cupid's bow
But his makeup is painted in a way that exaggerates the points upward and inward, this isn't vital when drawing him as Perpetua but can help if you draw the face and then the paint!
Now he has a specific set of things going on with his teeth, and I'm going to address the 'imperfections' with them, but please don't mistake that for me saying they're bad or need fixing. As long as they aren't causing him any trouble, there's nothing wrong with them. However as someone who's had orthodontic work done as an adult, I am really interested in the myriad of ways our teeth can come through and the causes for that. I'm not suggesting he needs to change them and in fact I think they have a lot of character and are also very fun to draw, and though no one is under any requirement to, I urge you to practice imperfect teeth, they're very common and add a lot to a portrait and character design and generally are fun and pleasant and full of personality.
So onto the teeth, the most notable ones right away are his bottom incisors, as he has some notable crowding
You'll notice his central indoors are mostly central/straight but his lateral incisors either side are sat further back, this creates what I've decided to call a bunny teeth look. As at a glance it can appear as though only the front incisors are there like a rabbit. This happens when theres not enough space for the teeth coming through, this can happen when either the jawbone is not wide or long enough or the teeth themselves are too wide to sit side by side, or a combo of all three. I also had some crowding on the bottom row as this is where it's most common, the teeth don't have the room required and they either crowd like this where they move to accommodate (sometimes it's symmetrical like in tf case where the same teeth on each side move the same way) or they can flare outward (more common with the top, I had this pretty badly, called an overjet, which is different to an overbite) or they sometimes teeth need to be extracted or occasionally theres orthodontic or surgical intervention to widen or lengthen the jaw or sometimes the sides of the teeth are sanded down to allow them to fit more flush with each other (it sounds shit, I've had it done, it's actually fine, just feels weird).
Another thing to note is that because the lateral incisors have moved behind the central ones, the canines on the bottom have slightly rotated outward and his bottom left incisor (out right in this case) is tilting inward. This is most obvious in the Lachryma music video where he seems to have some sort of wash over them to make them stand out.
You can basically only see his central incisors and his tilted canines here.
Now his top teeth are less distinctive but do have something everyone has noticed: vampire fangs
He does have a similar crowding with his incisors as on the bottom but much more subtle, very similar to what I had actually.
However, his canines are what steal the show here. They've got a two fold thing happening, so one is that they're slightly rotated, so they're sticking out more rather than laying flush with the others, and it's making the point seem more curved and pronounced as it's creating a visible gap between its inner edge and the lateral incisors. Here's an example of something similar pre and post orthadontic work, to show you how they move
Additional, his canines also appear to have erupted a little higher than the rest, so they'd normally share the same gumline as the rest of the teeth, but in some of us they erupt a bit higher up, which can often also push them out. So we have rotated, high and projected canines which gives him a really distinctive fang that means he's never gonna beat the V in Papa V stands for Vampire allegations and I love that for him.
This kind of formation also happens due to crowding, where his lateral incisors on the bottom sunk in behind his central incisors, his upper canines protruded out. This is again due to a slightly narrow palate, which is also seen in the fact that he has a very slightly recessed jaw, though he also has a prominent chin so it balances out and makes it hard to notice unless you're a little tooth freak like me. I also have a narrow palate and a more recessed jaw and chin than he does so I'm primed to see one of my own. You'll notice when he smiles with teeth but without opening his mouth, you'll rarely if ever see much of his bottom teeth, and it is normal for the bottom teeth to not be perfectly in line with the top, as they always sit behind the top unless you have an underbite, the layout of his teeth make it so that you only really see his bottom teeth when he's opening his mouth more fully, which is why they're seen more often in Copia due to the extent of motion required to open the latex mask mouth.
Now, I'm not gonna gate keep art, you can draw TF or Perpetua however you'd like in whatever style you'd like, but if like me, you're interested in likenesses and capturing them and like me, have found it really hard to capture his likeness and weren't sure what was missing, maybe this unnecessarily detailed guided tour of his face will help you, and even if it doesn't, you might have just learnt some fun facts about noses and mouths and orthodontics!
