Extremely life-like images have always been of great interest in the prior art. Wax museums startle viewers with the sense of being present in history in the very room with a famous person.
Wax museum figures have the disadvantage that they are subject to melting at high temperatures.
A method of making mannequins for store windows was proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,309,447, issued Jan. 26, 1943 to L. L. Greneker, and titled: DISPLAY DEVICE AND METHOD OF MAKING THE SAME.
The Greneker method involved completely shaping a head by sculpturing methods prior to the addition thereto of a flexible material such as paper or fabric coated with photographic impressions. Such coated fabric is then applied in one or more sections and the fabric is cut so as to fit around prominent parts of a face such as the nose and mouth.
The cutting of the fabric provided a recess or gore separating the photographically coated fabric into two parts, one half on one side of a recess and the other half on the other side of a recess.
The fabric at the two sides of the recess were then fitted and adhesively secured to the surface of the model so that parts of the coated fabric could become in substantial registry with the corresponding contours of the model to the extent possible by such a method of cutting and fitting.
The two edges of a recess in the fabric piece were brought into abutment along a vertical line extending from the tip of the nose to the neck in order to form nose, mouth and chin.
Other parts of the face were fitted in a similar manner by such cuttings of recesses in the fabric with the objective of bringing all edges into abutment.
A disadvantage of the Greneker method can be seen in the great skill required to make the cuts at the right places. Gaps at the joints were to be subdued by filling with pigment.
Another disadvantage is that the pigment is not itself a part of the photographically imprinted fabric.
However the objective was to make a mannequin which is quite a different objective than to make an image so life-like in its exact representation of an actual human being as to be startling in the substantially complete similarity, as seen in front view.
Such substantially complete similarity, which is the objective of this invention, is similar to the immediate recognizability of a excellent photograph, but of course, even more recognizability is achieved because of the 3-dimensional effect, as seen in front view.
Wax museum images can be made by a sculptor while looking at a photograph to guide forming the 3-dimensional sculpture. Greneker's method can be used by making the 3-dimensional sculpture while the sculptor is looking at a photograph while the photograph is not attached to the 3-dimensional sculpture.
But in the system hereof the photograph is not separated from the sculpture during the formation of the sculpture.
In the present invention the new system involves forming the 3-dimensional sculpture of the face-portion of the finished product while the photographically coated flexible face module is not separate from the sculpture but is instead in contact with the sculpture, purposely placed on the sculpture while the sculpture is soft and moldable.
The new discovery hereof is that it is possible to press on the photographically coated face module and actually form the 3-dimensional face sculpture by use of such pressing-through the photographically printed face module as the only or main method of sculpting the face.
In other words, before the stage of pressing-through the flexible face module no previous face-sculpturing at all is necessary with the method hereof.
A particular object is to provide a way to form a human face sculpture with front view accuracy as the sculptor is guided by the picture on the face module.
As compared with sculpturing while merely looking at an unattached photograph, the method hereof provides a new art form, making possible great front view accuracy with much greater sculpting speed.
Another objective is to provide a new article of manufacture, a finished product which is a face-sculpture having mounted thereon a photographically picture-coated piece of material, the coated material not being cut in its interior parts for fitting over protruding facial features of the sculpture therebeneath, but being substantially of one-piece of substantially uncut material.
A very great seeming realism is achieved herein by providing the face image with a recording assembly mounted therein and delivering a reproduction of the voice of the very same being the face image portrays. In the prior art, voice recordings of living beings have not been used with images of those beings to my knowledge.