I think the smile they took for SH3 is Marilyn Monroes'

Actually it's this one from the SH1 soundtrack ^-^ But nice observation anyway!

Fucking good find, peronmls! It is an exact match. The eye test confirms it. The SH3 mouth is a slight alteration of that photo.



Very well done!

It definitely isn't Lisa's mouth, we confirmed that years ago.

There are no similarities between the two, besides both mouths being open.

The Marilyn Monroe comparison is spot on!

Wow. I was wrong, always assumed it was Lisa, wow, nice find indeed!

That's fucking amazing, OP! This blows my mind! Very similar match, I'm with Ryan on this one.

Also, to you who were thinking/claiming that the mouth is supposed to represent Lisa, or Lisa's mouth from the SH1 OST cover, it's not. It has been said that it is supposed to represent Alessa screaming. I remember this being discussed sometime last year or so, as well as the meaning behind the bleeding ear (which represents madness, if I do remember correctly).

Its not Lisa's smile. Ito M. says they really represent Alessa’s “shrieking insanity.”

Of course is not Lisa's smile, she is smilling facing left, the photo is right, and incredible, it's really Marilyn Monroe.

The smile is mirrored sometimes in different levels

I reworded my post, but anyway...

It's not that people really thought it looked exactly like her smile from the Silent Hill OST, it's just that the fact that she is smiling in it, and that this smile is big, showing off very pearly, adult teeth (Not really the teeth you would see on a seven year old girl, honestly), then it really gave people the impression that it could have been used to represent Lisa or just Lisa's smile. It's easy to see it, and I actually thought the same before Ito spoke up. Either way, you're right, it's not supposed to represent her smile, like I said. It's supposed to represent Alessa screaming, or shrieking.

It better explains all of that here.

The three smiles are different (Especially Lisa's), you can see the gums and the tongue in the photo from SH3 and the mouth angle is also different... The expression is the same but the photos are different...

They re-drew the picture and also added color. The tongue it fake and drawn on. It's the same smile but drawn again to look better. Technical the photos are different but its the same smile took from her. That's why its not fuzzy like the zoomed in one because its drawn with color.

Wow!! peronmls, you're awesome. I've always been curious about that mouth. That sounds wrong...

It really does look like Marilyn's mouth in that photo. Amazing. That must've been where they got it. Now we just have to figure out the inspiration for the ear.

One thing I've always been weirded out by is the fact that the nostril is blocked/blurred out in the SH3 mouth picture. I wonder why they did that?

Can someone provide a picture of the ear for me?

The bleeding ear represents Alessa anger. We probably wont find that persons ear anywhere. LOL

That's most likely her. Good job!

That's why AiTT said that the smile in Silent Hill 3 is an alteration of the Marilyn picture, not an exact replica. They probably used that photo when designing the mouth for the game. I mean, come on, they use lots of former media as inspirations, so why not one of the most famous women in the 20th century, let alone in entire history?

About the ear, yeah you're probably not going to find a reference for that, but who knows, right? I always thought the ear looked way too small for the head (or a head in general). Eh, I can't really judge, though. I have very tiny ears. Haha.

Very nice find. There's already some discussion on the symbolism of the mouth and ear in this thread from the Quicklinks. It's been quiet for a year, but there are some interesting thoughts there, including word from Masahiro Ito on the subject.

I never noticed the nose had no nostril...

They probably did it to make it less obvious that it's part of a picture of Marilyn Monroe, and to simulate the graphics; make it less obvious that's it's an actual picture of someone, and more of a 3D model.