Caricatures 11 & 12: Patton's Army of Two

Try #1

We were watching some show on television the other day. I'm not sure but it may have been a talk show like Conan or maybe a King Of Queens rerun. That show was loaded with unknown guest stars that have since made it bigger. One of them was Spence Olchin, the nerdy little friend that was into all things sci-fi, lived with his mom and worked in a subway toll booth. He was played by none other than Patton Oswalt, who's fame exploded with the animated blockbuster, Ratatouille.


His scrunched up pudgy face should be easy to "caricaturize" but I found him to be an elusive target. After my recent success with Dr. Andre from The League I thought I was over a hump but despite two and a half tries I found myself unable to capture this guy effectively.

I dont know what happened on try number one. I may have noticed that his right eye is a bit higher than the left but rather than a recognizable exaggeration I made it look goofy and out of place as if I were drawing Sloth from The Goonies. I tried to give him large jowls but his face is more sturdy than fat so that didn't work either. I gave up on it and started over using a different photograph for reference.


The second photo really showed how scrunched up Patton's face is when he smiles and looking at it now I see all kinds of improvements I could make. His head is almost as round as a basketball so I should have flattened and widened everything to take advantage of it. Instead I just tried to stretch his forehead a little and make his eyes squinty. When it was finished it looked nothing like him so I went back and found some other photos where he appears to have puffy, almost closed eyelids. I erased my original eyes and redrew them as slits with thick lids which helped a little but it is still not much of a spittin' image.

I definitely plan to try this one again when I get a little better at picking out the details but these will have to do for now. One step forward and two steps back. I did try out a little cross hatching for shading so I did learn something from this set although I think I overused it and made him look like he has a couple of black eyes.

Redrawn with thicker, squintier eyes.

Original drawing with open eyes.