Caricature 1/500: Stevie B

Well, here we go. I mentioned that it was stated in the book I read that a newbie caricaturist can expect to draw 500 bad caricatures before they get the hang of it so I am off and running with #1 in the series.


For my first solo caricature I picked Steve Buscemi. He has a very unusual face with a lot of unique features, particularly his teeth and eyes. I also tried to shrink his chin and give him a larger forehead while leaving the nose and ears alone.


I'm not sure how many hours I worked on this but it was nothing like you see the guy at the state fair doing. It was like this... draw an eye about 10 times, then draw the other eye 10 times, then draw the nose, then realize the eyes are too close so erase the nose and one eye and redraw that eye farther away from the first ten more times and so on.

Here is one of the
photos I used for #1.

On and on this went. After I was happy with the eyes and nose I drew the mouth too far away leaving the face looking longer than I wanted. After about 5 more mouths I finally got it shaped out. I am struggling to keep my lessons in mind as nothing seems to work until I draw, erase, redraw until it looks right. I know I am supposed to have this mapped out ahead of time so it all comes together in one try.


The chin and eyebrows didn't take as long as the rest but I did have to change the forehead size numerous times to get it how i wanted. I can see that these drawings are going to be way more involved than I thought until I get the hang of the proportions and layout so I don't have to keep redrawing everything.


So that's #1 of 500. Most people I have asked recognize who it is but, let's face it, Steve is not a hard one to pick out of a crowd.