JA is a bitch to draw. His lips are hard to capture. Between JP's hair and his nose, he's much easier.

Does it make it harder that he's so perfect? I mean that honestly. His features are so balanced, there's nothing as quirky and individual as JP's nose.

His eyes are a little close-set than average, that's always struck me as distinctively him.

I don't think they're close set. The standard is an eye's width between them, and he's got precisely that. Not that I experimented with a graphics program and almost got busted by a co-worker, no.

His features are so balanced, there's nothing as quirky and individual as JP's nose.

Yeah, pretty much. Everything's in the right place, but not in a boring way. It's the lashes and the lips. Damn, those lips.

Oh god, no, not in a boring way. It's also what he does with those lips, when he smirks, and the crinkles beside his eyes when he laughs ...

I could go on.

I am completely incapable of drawing anything that resembles anything, so I am duly impressed with what those artists came up with. But yes, I think Sam and Dean are often most recognizable when drawn next to one another (floppy hair vs. short, tall vs. bowed legs, that sort of thing) than on their own.

Jensen, DA era, was so pretty-perfect more than one person has referred to the Uncanny Valley effect.

His features are proportionate and regular, but one of his eyes just slightly crosses, there's a small divot out of the right side of the bridge of his nose. These irregularities rescue his features from uncanny perfection, and yet are small enough to escape the notice of most amateur artists. The eyes, lashes, and lips are so striking and demanding of attention that a lot of drawers concentrate on them and pay less attention to the shadows and proportions and distances. JA's difficult to caricature, unless one focuses on the eyes and lips, and it's a less-satisfying sketch than of JP, who's easier to caricature because of the hair, the bone structure, the eye-tilt, and the nose. He's just as difficult to render realistically, though.

Uncanny Valley gets thrown around a lot. I don't think it applies in the case of any human I've seen without plastic surgery. He's just really pretty. But 100% human. Uncanny Valley isn't perfect. It's soulless and flat.

DA era JA was especially quirky and animated, so I really don't see it.

I think it was part of the whole X5 thing. Better, stronger, faster, prettier.

He was the prettiest of the X5s, but only Alba looked flat to me. And that was because she can't act.