Caricature 8/500: Brick

Caricature is about noticing the subtle differences and unique characteristics that an individual has and exaggerating them. As a beginner, I like to pick faces that have easily noticeable features. At this stage I have to be able to look at a face and immediately see its uniqueness. That's why I haven't done any females or children yet. Kids often look alike unless they are really unusual and women require you to be very minimal with your line work or it will over-age your subject. Plus they wear makeup to accentuate their eyes, lips and cheeks and you have to work all that into the equation.


Today I reveal my first kid caricature. I drew this one of Brick from the tv show The Middle. He's the funny little kid that reads books all day and whispers to himself, played by Atticus Shaffer.




I emphasized his slitlike eyes and big low hanging ears on this drawing. He also has a thin, somewhat crooked smile. This is the first caricature I have made with a body on it. I basically just drew a generic type kid's body and added a backpack with a bunch of books on fonts (Brick's favorite subject) to add to the recognizability.


I think it looks ok but the real Brick has a unique body as well that I didn't really take advantage of. Sometimes he appears to have almost no neck at all as if his head is set right on his shoulders. Also, his high shoulders make him look like a marionette hanging from strings. Next time I do Brick I will try to take advantage of those observations.


This one finally came together with a lot less erasing so maybe I am finally getting the hang of sizes and proportions.

Caricatures 6&7/500: Hey It's Me Again

The disastrous first try at caricaturing myself left me looking through old photo albums for an easier pose to capture. I found a couple of shots of me with different looks that appeared worthy of another attempt... or two.

The first one I tried is me at a San Diego Charger game. What they say is true about live sporting events adding 30lbs. So in this one I have a big round face with noticeable puffy cheeks and my patented chick-magnet dimples. Also worthy of exaggeration is the double chin and, as always, my upturned honker. I think it turned out to be a decent drawing. Not too detailed and a bit cartoony, the only problem is no one thinks it looks like me. It has more of a Hank Jr. feel to it.


The second one is clean-cut Mike. Here I was able to stretch out my chin and enhance my long face. Notice how much rounder my face looks with the beard in the above photo. I am pretty happy with the way this one turned out. I think I got the eyes and nose right and the chin was a good exaggeration. No one would recognize it as me because I'm wearing a suit but other than that I think there is a good resemblance. 

Much better than my first attempt.

My first "brush" with color.

Once I finished the drawing, I scanned it and brought it into Photoshop to try adding a little color. I can see that painting these caricatures is going to be harder than it looks. Ideally, the next step after drawing should be inking. This is when I get out the fountain pen and trace my sketch in black ink. The fountain pen will allow for different line weights which adds depth to the drawing. Then I scan it and finally apply color in Photoshop with a Wacom tablet. In my test I just used the airbrush tool in Photoshop which left it looking digitized instead of cartoonish or in the comic book style. It is not really possible to guide the mouse in such a way as to make effective artistic brush strokes. This was just a test to see how it works.

Caricature 5/500: Local Talent

Well today I decided to pick on someone I actually know for my caricature. My buddy Mike across the courtyard sits out on his patio all day smoking cigars while reading the paper. He's a big ol' German fella from the midwest who spent a lotta years on Wall Street and now takes it easy and keeps an eye on things in our complex here in sunny Pasadena.


In this caricature I wanted to emphasize his nose and somewhat squinty eyes and bushy eyebrows. It has been a week or two since I drew this one and I was pretty happy with it at first but now I can see a few things I would do differently (I guess that is progress). I would still exaggerate the nose but I wouldn't make it as long as it stretches his face too much. I would also round up the cheeks a bit more so the head shape becomes rounder and wider.


I made the hat small on his head so I could add mass to his chin but I'm not sure it worked as planned. I look forward to revisiting this one when I get a little more experience and think I can make something more effective. I'm pretty happy with it as beginner level drawing though.


I haven't showed it to Mike yet but maybe I will just to test how good our friendship is and how much I can get away with when I start drawing my other friends. 

Caricature 4/500: My Biggest Celeb So Far

You may ask yourself... What could be more embarrassing than having a blog that reveals all of your daily failures in a new hobby that you have little skill at? The answer is... Using yourself as the guinea pig in a new hobby that reveals all of those failures and posts them on the internet. So of course that's what I did. #4 in our series of 500 poorly drawn caricatures is me. To be more specific, me three weeks into an elk hunting trip in the wilds of Wyoming. This is a phone pic i took at 9500ft one morning after a snowstorm.


If you think it is hard to draw someone else you should try drawing yourself. Since the only way you really know yourself is through a mirror image it never looks quite right. I initially exaggerate this one with a long chin but when I showed it to the wife she said it looked like i had a foot long beard so I erased half of it. This one is pretty much of a disaster. The brow is way too heavily lined and the eyes are jacked up and it's not a caricature since I erased the long chin and didn't really exaggerate much else. At some point you just figure it's not worth saving and give up. That's what happened on this one. 

New Study Materials

Since I finished Tom Richmond's book the other day I have been hunting for more information on caricature. I picked up a book by Martin Pope that has a lot of useful information called Drawing Caricatures: How to Create Successful Caricatures in a Range of Styles. I am now working my way through the nose section. One part i find particularly useful is his technique of showing a full page of the same faces with one feature exaggerated to show how much it changes the way the face looks. It is really interesting to see how changing something like the ear shape and size can make the whole head look fatter or thinner.


Another resource I found is a section on caricature from the website Learn To Draw.com. It looks as though it contains upwards of 25 pages of tips and techniques. I am going to dig deeper into it this evening and see what I can find.

Caricature 3/500: Joe Man

I was watching Criminal Minds the other day and immediately noticed how interesting Joe Mantegna's face looks. He has kind of a droopy right eye and his mouth is very crooked. He also has a raised left eyebrow and a thick goatee beard.


This one is pretty recognizable but I'm not really caricaturing much on it. I think I am trying so hard to make it look like the person that I don't want to exaggerate too much and blow it. It is amazing how quick you can go from "That's him" to "That looks nothing like him". Just a couple of lines in the wrong place can change everything so I am treading very lightly.


I think as I get more confident in drawing I will be able to blow stuff up but it is taking me so long right now just to make it look like the person that I don't want to ruin it. I am still spending a couple hours erasing and starting over on these drawings, particularly the eyes. I may have 497 more caricatures to go but I feel like I have already drawn and erased 5000 eyes.


At least I didn't go overboard on the detail with this one. It has a bit of a cartoonish look. So there you have #3 in the series.


Note: According to experts, a beginner can expect to draw 500 poor caricatures before getting the hang of it so I am documenting my progress during the first 500.

Caricature 2/500: Gary B

On to #2 in the series of unsuccessful caricatures. Insert usual disclaimer here--> (according to experts, a beginner can expect to draw 500 poor ones before getting the hang of it).


As you can see, I tried to pick easy ones to start with and no one looks like a caricature in real life more than Gary Busey. After watching him on Celebrity Apprentice, I knew his wacky eyes and huge Chiclet shaped veneers were worthy of emphasis. Most people were able to recognize this one but I think I am focusing on one picture too much rather than using a picture or pictures as a guide to bring out the person's personality. 


I am also going into too much detail and should keep it more cartoony so it doesn't just look like a bad portrait. As you will see, I fall back into that for quite a few drawings to come and even gets worse before it gets better. 

First I drew each tooth
and it  didn't look like
Gary's wall of veneers.

I originally made the teeth too detailed and had to redo them. In life, they look more like a single piece of porcelain than individual teeth and too much detail makes them look ... wrong.


This one also took me hours to complete with much erasing and redoing. It'll be awhile before I can crank one of these out in 30 minutes or less.


Anyway, this is #2. 498 to go.

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.

Lesson 10: "Hairs To Ya" or... "Leaving the Nest"

Here is a copied caricature
I drew of David Caruso
in his CSI Miami garb.

Ok, so I have covered most of the facial features required in caricature. At some point we will go over hands and necks and body types and the rest of it but since I am focusing on faces we will put that stuff on the back burner. 


One thing we haven't covered is hair. Hair is very important in caricature. It is extremely variable and one of the few features that can change by the minute. It is very individual and lends itself well to Rule #1, Recognition.

I copied the head
of this guy but came up
with the rest on my own.

Drawing hair poorly is not that hard. Drawing hair well is difficult and time consuming. It's not just a bunch of lines scribbled on top of the head. That was kind of my thought going in and that's pretty much how I am still doing it. Why? Because I am concentrating on faces right now and I could spend years working on doing hair right. As it turns out, drawing hair correctly as Tom Richmond explains it, requires multiple levels. First you draw the foreground shapes (locks of hair) then the middle shapes and finally the background shapes. Then you make the locks flow around, in front of and behind each other. This builds depth to the hair and makes it look more realistic. Once I get my eyes and mouths straight I will concern myself with all of those hair shapes but until then I'll get by with scribble hair.

This a copied caricature
of Jason Lee from
My Name is Earl

I copied this one of
Daniel Craig but no
one recognizes him.

This will be the last post showcasing my copies of caricatures. From next post on I am going to leave the nest and try to fly by drawing my own caricatures from scratch. I expect a quite a few crash landings. The book says I can expect 500 crappy caricatures before I get the hang of it so I will be counting down from there. Maybe I'll get my start at the family Christmas party tonight.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Lesson 9: "Can You Ear Me Now?" or..."Just Jawin'"

Here is a fat guy with big jowls.
Note: Constant mass
requires that we make the
forehead smaller to compensate

Now that we have covered the main features of the face we can tie them all together with the cheeks, chins, ears, eyebrows, foreheads and jawlines. While not the main facial features, they certainly add to recognizability in certain people and minimizing them sends the eye to the features you want to emphasize.


Cheeks and chins change dramatically with body type/weight so it is very easy to add weight to a person's face by pumping up the cheeks and jowls (a line you may not want to cross when asked to show off your talents at the family reunion).


Ears are one (two in most cases) of the more noticeable of the lesser features and can add to recognizability by adjusting size, location and cant on the side of the head. Ears continue to grow throughout life, especially in men so can also be used to suggest age. Don't get carried away, they should be drawn with just enough detail to show depth and the major folds lest they garner too much attention.


Like everything else, the combinations and possibilities are endless but having a small library of ears and chins should give you plug-and-play implants for most subjects. Just like Hollywood!

Here is a guy with a long face
made by exaggerating the chin.

This guy has a more chiseled
jaw and heavy eyebrows.

Lesson 8: "Putty in My Hand"... or "Never Give A Caricaturist An Even Break"

Week 3 Reflections: The Final Chapter

Ugh... here is one i gave up on.
W.C. Fields would  be even less
recognizable with a small nose.

I'll close this series with a couple short diagnoses of my roadblocks. I think the two main hurdles in drawing for me so far are making confident strokes and getting proportion/symmetry right. First I have trouble drawing a line where I want it and then when I get a bunch of them on the paper the final sketch looks like a funhouse mirror. I know what you're thinking... Isn't that the whole idea of caricature? Not really, as it turns out there is a big difference between exaggeration and distortion. 


Exaggeration is picking a feature that already stands out and pushing it to a further extreme. Distortion is exaggerating features that don't necessarily lend themselves to exaggeration for that given subject. Giving Marty Feldman small squinty eyes or W.C. Fields a button nose are distortions. They don't fit on those faces and don't lend themselves to recognition, which is Rule #1 of caricature.

Distortions are like randomly
stretching a silly putty transfer.

So, in essence, my first caricatures are really portraitures of other people's caricatures. Unfortunately, I'm not putting the features in the right places and/or those features aren't the right size or shape so they look like unintentional distortions. I am making my faces too long, my eyes too close together and my ears too low. Sometimes I  can see what's wrong and don't know how to fix it and sometimes it's just a mess that can only be helped with a lighted match. 

Here is one I copied out of Tom Richmond's book.
It's Earl from the TV show My Name is Earl.

It's even more noticeable when I try to do a serious sketch of someone. In fact, you might even say that there is a thin line between my portraitures and bad caricatures. Maybe that's my fast track. "I thought I was a portrait artist until they told me I was doing caricatures."


It's not all bad though, I have done a couple that have been somewhat recognizable and will start showcasing them soon. While there is still a flash of panic in my wife's eyes every time I turn my sketchpad to her and ask "Do you know who this is?", she sometimes gets it right on the second try. I'm not sure why her first guess is always William H. Macy.

Lesson 7: "Quality Time In An Antique Urinal" or... "Read Faster, I Hear A Banjo"

Week 3 Reflections: Part 2


In my last post I talked about the mental part of my first three weeks studying caricature in Tom Richmond's book, The Mad Art of Caricature. Who says you can't learn to draw from reading a book? Well, whoever it was, they were right.

An example of Woodshedding.

I figured something out early on. Drawing is hard and there is a reason we are all amazed at stuff like the Mona Lisa, Sistine Chapel and Mad Magazine fold-in covers. Not everyone can do it and those who can have spent a lot of time in the woodshed. Woodshedding... that's a banjo term, though it may have been a fiddle or trumpet term first (banjo players are notoriously sticky-fingered). By the way, I have decided that going forward I am going to 'draw' comparisons to banjo playing whenever it's pertinent or I need a cheap laugh. "Woodshedding" is when you stink so bad at what you are doing that your family sends you out back to practice in the woodshed so they don't have to listen to it. For those youngsters in the My Caricatour Posse who don't know what a woodshed is, it's the little building in the olden days where your dad would take you out behind to either spank you or teach you how to pee on two feet. Often one lead to the other, especially if you peed on the wrong two feet. As you will see in the upcoming posts, I have played my share of sour notes as a newbie draw-er. I started it all by getting out my book and trying to sketch a few of each facial feature as I learned about its particulars. Evidence of this can be found in lessons 1-5 below.


Next, I tried to tackle some caricatures. That is to say, I attempted to draw Tom's caricatures in the book exactly as I saw them. Remember, I said I needed to learn to just plain draw again before I could start improvising. Caricatures are somewhat cartoony so I thought drawing them would help me to get used to the techniques I would eventually need to develop more-so than doing straight portraitures of people. 

Caricaturists and banjo players
are two peas in a pod.

Caricature artists seem to have a formula for drawing the different features. Maybe they have 10 or 20 or 100 different noses they can pull from memory.  I don't know, I only have one to pick from so far and using a pencil on it makes my eyes water... Anyway, most noses these guys and gals see on their subjects are going to be "close enough" to plug a nose from their library right into the drawing. Kind of like banjo playing, (See, I warned you) you learn a few licks or riffs in the key of G, a few more in C and a couple in D. Play them over and over until they become automatic and then slap them together in different orders and you got yourself a bunch of banjo tunes. I know you thought that kid from Deliverance was a genius but it really is that simple.* 


It is obviously easier to draw exactly what you see than an exaggeration in your head but I'm struggling all the same. As I stated earlier, I haven't tried to hand-draw anything in probably 30 years. My frustration comes from knowing what I want to do but not being able to communicate that from my brain to my hand. Exactly how it was when I started playing the banjo... and pretty much how it still is after 8 years of playing the banjo. *sigh*


Tomorrow I will wrap up the Reflections Trilogy and we will move on to a few of my more pitiful drawings. I know the clever anecdotes have sucked you in but the trainwrecks are what you really want to see. Stay tuned!


*Ok, anyone who has tried to play banjo knows it's a little trickier than that but, in theory at least, that is what it boils down to in its simplest terms. True, I consider myself about as much of an expert on the banjo as I do as a caricaturist but if you're willing to bite, I'm willing to reel you in.

Lesson 6: Is That A Growth On Your Brain?...or "Dolly Parton Has A Huge Smile Too""

Week 3 Reflections: Part 1

Steve Buscemi has a host
of features just dying
to be exaggerated.

If you have been here since the beginning, both of you know that it has been about a week and a half since my initial post. You probably couldn't tell with all the smoke and mirrors but this blog is not happening exactly in real-time. I had to build up a little material first so I would have experiences to share, plus my wife didn't even give me the idea to do a blog until I was a week or more into it. So I am a little further on my journey than I am leading on, but not much. 


I got my Tom Richmond book in the mail around the end of November and did nothing but read through the "theory" chapters and marvel at the artwork for the first 5 or 6 days. Then I started working on some of the basic ideas presented such as drawing the different shapes and learning to see the things that give individuals their individuality.

Joe Montegna has a
crooked mouth and
distinctly asymmetrical
eyes.

Even though it has only been a short time and I have yet to make a single successful drawing, caricaturing has already changed how I look at things. I remember when I got into the graphics business 15 or so years ago. Soon after I started making newspaper and magazine ads the whole world changed. Before this, I had always skimmed over and never really even "saw" the ads in my magazine subscriptions. I always went straight to the pic... er, articles and never even noticed the junk in between. Then when the junk in between became my job, I not only started noticing the ads but scrutinized and dissected them. 


Nerd thoughts were popping into my brain like "I wonder what font they used in that" and "Wow, what a great color pallet they chose here." As a former Army Light Infantry/Airborne Vet, these thoughts were unsettling to say the least. Still, it continued and evolved. As I got better at ad-setting, I began to see how these other artists were putting their ads together and could quickly analyze their processes. To be truthful, in some ways it ruined that type of art for me. I couldn't just enjoy something like a cool wedding dress ad or Martha Stuart crafting article anymore, I had to pick it apart and figure out its construction so I could eventually add it to my own repertoire.

Who knew Dolly
had other features
to pick on?

Now, after only three weeks, I notice the same thing happening with caricature. With every face I see in a sitcom or at a  dinner party, features are popping out at me. Thoughts like "Your overbite really sets you apart", "I never noticed your eyes are so far apart" and "I'd love to draw your pig nose someday" are invading my brain. 


I may need to install a "Kramer" filter before long but I still think that it is a good sign!

Lesson 5: "If I Wanted Any Lip Outta You..." or...Getting Mouthy

Mouths have a lot of muscles that
create an ever changing feature.

After the eyes, the mouth is the most identifiable shape in a caricature. It is also the most dynamic and variable facial feature in that, not only do mouths come in different shapes and sizes, the same mouth can change in innumerable ways with emotion, age and style of facial hair (and that's just for Eastern European women). Add the varieties of lips and teeth and the possibilities are endless.




Sink your teeth into this
Personal quirks are often revealed by the mouth. That crooked smile, toothy grin, pursed lips, overbite or "gummy" smile can give your caricature the "that's totally him" look you are shooting for.

A smile with too many lines make
the teeth look dirty and gross.

I'm learning that one of the pitfalls of drawing mouths is putting too much detail into them, particularly the teeth. Teeth are white and shiny (unless you're from Arkansas) and too many lines make them look blocky, gappy and wooden. The use of "implied" lines will add depth to your smiles and make them more lifelike.

I drew this one with too much detail.

I redid it with less lines here
 but am still not happy with it.

Here's a mouth a banjo player would be proud of!
(It's funny because I'm a banjo player. Stick
around and you'll find that I end up as the
butt of most of my own jokes).

Drawing the outline of the teeth and then filling in a few light details is usually enough. If you are going for a cartoony look, just the outline may be sufficient.

Mustaches can make
a mouth very unique.

Less detail makes the
smile cleaner.

Getting Lippy

Shading under the bottom lip
gives it depth.

Lips have depth and are often shiny. To show this you need to use shading. Darken the creases and leave the parts where the light hits uncolored.  Lips come in many varieties and are very individual, except here in LA where they all come from the same surgeon.

Some people have almost no upper lip.

I'd say drawing mouths correctly has been my biggest struggle so far. Lots of trial and error has me wishing for a 'Control Z' on my sketchbook (PhotoShop and Illustrator geeks know that's the shortcut for 'undo'). Instead, I am the proud owner of a jar full of eraser nubbed pencils.


p.s. No offense to my Arkansas brothers and sisters. I spent several years there myself and almost everyone I knew was very proud of their tooth. :D

Lesson 4: Meet My Friend Bill or... "Who Nose What's Next?"

If you ask the average crowd of strangers what caricature is, there will likely be more than a few answers that come back as "That's when you draw someone with a big nose." While a large nose is a great thing to exaggerate if you are lucky enough to have a subject that owns one, it's not really all that this artform boils down to.


In caricature, we are looking to capture two main things... a recognizable likeness and personality. You can add "statement" to that as well which is adding peripheral items like style of dress and props to further describe and identify your subject. Drawing Harrison Ford with a white shirt, vest and ray gun tells you it's Han Solo while drawing him with a fedora, dusty leather jacket and bullwhip tells you he's Indiana Jones.

a schnoz collage

Back to noses... Nothing sticks out (literally) in a caricature like a nose. It's right in the center of the head shape between the two most expressive features of the face, the eyes and the mouth. That's not to say that the nose is the most important feature to capture or exaggerate. Some people like Owen Wilson and Tony Bennett warrant first class treatment of their overpowering and/or unusual beaks but many folks have very average nondescript noses and focusing on them does not lend itself to capturing likeness. If you don't notice the nose at first glance, it probably should not be the focal point of your caricature.

Owen Wilson has a
noteworthy nose.

Size is only one part of the equation. Apart from the different shapes and sizes, noses also have depth. They protrude from the face more than any other feature. Noses are not particularly hard to draw (they don't have a lot of intricate parts like the eye) but since they stick out so far from the face, proper shading is very important.


Few facial features come in wider variety than noses. They can be flat, pointy, wide, long, button, broken, bent, upturned, hooked and any combination in between (and that's just Michael Jackson's). 

Lesson 3: Soul Searching... or "Eyes Finally Gonna Start Drawin' Something."

Eyes can show many traits
and emotions, such as anger...

It's said that eyes are the window to the soul... unless you are wearing holey shoes. Regardless, in caricature, you are not just trying to present a representation of your subject's "look" by exaggerating certain features. Equally important is the ability to capture that person's personality. Nothing is more reflective of a person's (or a dog's, horse's or hurricane's) personality than the eyes.

wisdom...

Eyes come in virtually limitless varieties. Shape, size, color, distance from each other, canting on the face and position on the head shape all make eyes very individual. In our perfect portraiture model the eyes are positioned on the equator, dividing the head shape in half horizontally. People who have the appearance of a large forehead may be drawn with the eye level under the equator to emphasize this. conversely, if your subject has a long or large chin you can move the eyes above mid-line to exaggerate. Remembering Constant Mass... Long Chin = Short Somewhere Else and moving the relative position of the eyes accomplishes this.

and glee.

Eyes show expression and emotion more than any other facial feature. Eyes, along with their counterparts (lids and brows), may be puffy, squinty, wide-open, crossed, or droopy and can convey anger, sadness, fatigue, fear, confusion, age and just about any other personality or physical trait you can think of.


There is more to eyes than a couple of ovals with a couple of circles inside. They actually have quite a few parts that meet, overlap and stretch with expression and age. Sometimes half the battle of capturing a subject's "look" can be found in their eyes. Below are a few different kinds of eyes I tried to draw after reading up on them.


I still don't know if this is going to work out but I am, at least, feeling more comfortable in drawing what I see. Drawing "off the map" may be a different story. In fact, it will be a different story... at this rate I'll be calling it "Lesson 148: My First Post Not Ripping Off Tom Richmond's Book."

Eyes can capture a person's essence like no other facial feature.