Caricature 24/500: The Walking Dead Part 1: Dale

I love the post-apocalyptic zombie show on AMC, The Walking Dead. I can't wait for the next season to start in a couple of weeks and I would really like to put together a decent caricature scene for it. There are lots of cool main characters (and a million varieties of undead) to choose from but for my first one I picked Dale, the RV driving, Hawaiian shirt wearing patriarch of the group of survivors the series revolves around. He's got a big hooked nose and piercing dark eyes and always seems to be mad or appalled at something. Add his salt and pepper beard and big bushy black eyebrows and you have quite a caricaturable face.


I did the main sketch with pencil and then inked it in with a fine tipped magic marker just so I could have some lines to paint around. Next I scanned it into Photoshop and broke out my new Wacom tablet to color it. 


I loosely followed the tutorial on Tom Richmond's website for digital coloring but I have been using Photoshop for a long time so am pretty familiar with the techniques. As he suggests, I just laid down a base color coat and then built up layer after layer of shading and highlighting using various opacities and colors. The pen felt pretty good in my hand and I am definitely getting used to the tablet. I know I have a lot of practice to do before I become adept but this was a decent first try. It probably took me a couple of hours to color everything in and draw the shirt pattern. I can't imagine how long it will take to fill out the Winnebago with the lawn chair on top but hopefully I will be faster by the time I get there.

Classing it up and Hitting the Books

I know we are in the middle of the Magnum pi series right now but I am having a little trouble with one of the guys so I am going to come back to that when I get him figured out. Right now I would like to fill you in on a few more study materials I am sifting through and tell you about my first art-related classroom experience since high school.

I just finished going through a book on inking by Gary Martin called fittingly enough The Art of Comic Book Inking. I didn't know much about inking but there is really a lot to it. I thought I could just bring my sketch into photoshop and use my pencil lines to color around but inking is very important. Inking adds the depth and crispness to your final product. It involves using brushes and quill pens so that you can vary the thickness of your lines, something you cannot do with a pencil. these varying line weights give your drawing the appearance of a third dimension. You may not think it makes a difference until you see a penciled piece next to an inked one but you can even see what I mean just by looking at the cover of Gary's book here. 


The other book I am reading right now is How to Draw Caricatures by Lenn Redman. It is a little older and his techniques aren't as refined as Tom Richmond's but he shares a lot of really good ideas on exaggeration and "seeing" the uniqueness of your subject. I am only halfway through it but I think I can already comfortably recommend it. It includes lots and lots of case studies showing a picture and then how he went about caricaturing it.



The other big news is that Xty and I are taking a life drawing course at Pasadena City College for the next 7 consecutive Saturdays. Yep, that's right... what better way to learn caricature than by drawing naked people. Actually I think it will help a quite a bit. This week our homework is to draw three version of our hand. The class is tomorrow morning so guess what we are doing today? Actually, I did two of mine yesterday so I only have one left. Xty spent a few hours and 3 sketchpads getting frustrated the other day but is now ready to knock them out. We are to draw one of our hand just sitting there, one of our hand holding something and one of our hand in the strange pose that our instructor picked. Here is one I did of my hand holding finger picks and picking the banjo.

A Little Break: Taking in a Show

Basil Rathbone is by far
my favorite Holmes

We've been busy in the Larsen family lately. Xty and I both work freelance jobs, me computer graphics and her pastry cheffing (see her awesome food blog here). So... we work weird hours whenever an email or order comes in requiring a quick turnaround on a birthday cake or business card. That's fine and it usually allows us to steal a few hours during the week for a movie matinee when the theaters are empty of children and talkers. With holiday baking and my new website development sideline we haven't had a chance to sneak away for several weeks. A few days ago we finally got the chance and decided to go see the new Sherlock Holmes movie.


Now I am a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes. I have read all 50+ original stories by Arthur Conan Doyle and LOVED the Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce movies of the '30s and '40s. I was not such a big fan of the Guy Ritchie remake several years ago and I found out the other day that I didn't like his second effort either. I mean come on, we all know Holmes was a decent boxer but to give him ninja skills to take out 4 assailants at once is ridiculous and takes away from both the story and Holmes' essence. He's a thinker, not an action hero.

Tom Richmond's
version of Holmes.

Anyway, when we got home I decided I wanted to try to draw Sherlock Holmes... the real Sherlock Holmes, Basil Rathbone style. The results were disastrous. I don't know if I was just having a bad day or what but I couldn't get anywhere with it. After much erasing I decided it might help to look at how other caricaturists (did you notice how I cleverly lumped myself into that group there?) have handled him by doing a Google image search. One jumped right out at me. Of course when I followed the image back to its original home page I found that it belonged to none other than my caricaturist idol, Tom Richmond. He's the guy who literally wrote the book that got me started in this.


I turned the page on my sketchpad and quickly copied his drawing as I saw it. Boom, just like that it came out looking good. Why couldn't I think of this on my own? I definitely need to spend a little more time copying other people's caricatures to help see what to do and how to draw the different facial features effectively.


So I took my lightly penciled sketch, got out the new set of colored pastels I hadn't yet had a chance to try out and went to town creating my first full-color drawing. Here is what I came up with. Yes, I copied it from another artist but I didn't trace it or anything and I colored and shaded it myself so it's only half cheating. I'm pretty happy with the result and can't wait for the day when some newbie is copying my work. There you have it... Sherlock Holmes. 

Caricature 23/500: Magnum pi Part 2, Higgins

No, it's not Hitler. But thanks for noticing because several times on the show Higgins was referred to as "that little Hitler looking fellow." 


We continue our Magnum pi series with our second victim. The stodgy Englishman Jonathon Quail Higgins (played by native Texan John Hillerman) was the caretaker of Robin's Nest (the estate) and Magnum's biggest foil. He was known to ramble on for days about his memoirs and war experiences, particularly when a quick answer or action was needed. He was constantly berating Magnum's slovenly lifestyle and career choice... "Up all night on another tawdry divorce case, no doubt." Magnum was in charge of estate security and lived in the guesthouse. Higgins was quick to point out every violation and security breech to discredit him and get him out. 


On the other hand, Magnum suspected that Higgins was really the estate's owner and noted pulp fiction author Robin Masters going undercover to hide his true identity as not to tarnish his blueblood social status. It all makes for a lot of childish pranks and humorous insults.


It is pretty impossible to not make Higgins look like Hitler with just a head sketch. Even if there never were a Hitler I think Higgins is more identifiable by his body type and other props than by his facial features. He has a tiny mustache and serious look but not a lot to pick on and I wasn't able to find anything on the internet to cheat from. This isn't my favorite caricature so far but when you see the group scene at the end you may think it fits just fine.


Higgins was the anti-Magnum and a big part of the shows's success. Coming next is one of Magnum's best pals and Vietnam comrades. Stay tuned to find out who!

Caricature 22/500: Magnum pi Part 1, Magnum

We were cleaning out the old junk in the office the other day to make a little room for the new junk when the wife came across an old leather billfold. She tossed it across the room to me and said "Have a look at this." I opened it and it was my 1986 Official Private Detective card given only to graduates of the California based Rouse School of Investigation. Sounds very Christmas Story - Annie Oakley Decoder Pen doesn't it? It would be if I hadn't been 19 years old in 1986. haha. I could have sworn I was only 12 or 13 when I signed up for that. 

My initial sketch

It did take a couple of years to get through it and was pretty informative. I bet my mom still has the course tucked away in a cedar chest somewhere in her attic. Why would a young impressionable teenager pay hundreds of dollars to take a shady correspondence course in private investigation you ask? One word... Magnum.


Growing up, Magnum pi was my favorite show on television. I never missed it. I loved everything about the scenery, fast cars, camaraderie and nonstop action. I wore Hawaiian shirts and sunglasses with the leather side shades and tried to grow a cool mustache. Who didn't? From 1980-88 that show ruled! I used my Rouse School lockpick set to open the padlock on our garden shed while self narrating "pick the lock, don't look at the dogs, pick the lock...." (it actually worked really well). I even got the Magnum pi commemorative team ring they sold in the back of the TV Guide.

The final caricature

Today we start a new caricature series for the show, and who better to start out with than the star, Thomas Magnum played by Tom Selleck. I really tried to get a good likeness on this one but he is harder than you might think. They are all hard for me but even googling it I was unable to find more than one or two decent caricatures by other artists. The obvious exaggeration is the mustache.


I have been noticing lately that sometimes I am able to come up with an initial sketch that I am pretty happy with but when I go in to line and color it, something is lost. It may be that I am still putting too much detail into the shading and wrinkles. Here are pictures of my initial sketch and the finished drawing. I think the sketch looks more like Magnum than the finished caricature. He looks less smirky and fun with the details added. That is something I will need to work on. I definitely plan to try this again when I get better. I know Selleck is very proud of the series and all kidding aside it may have helped me to get my behind on the right track more than I realized. Even before it was over I had joined the military where I did some flying around in helicopters and eventually got a Bachelor of Science degree in Criminal Justice. I never thought it had anything to do with Magnum pi at the time but who knows what you soak up in your formative years. Stay tuned for Part 2.

Caricature 21/500: Going Mental

Here we are 4% of the way into our journey already. I have burned through quite a few erasers in the last month or so but things are getting a bit easier. I am becoming a little more comfortable in the drawing part but the seeing part is still proving elusive unless I go with easy subjects. Luckily nowadays we have the internet to help so I am able to search out other people's caricatures to cheat a bit on what to exaggerate by seeing how they handled things. It is amazing how various artists have different takes on the same subject but are still able to achieve a likeness. Google Images is a great resource and every little bit helps... Enough of that, on to today's post.

For my 21st caricature, I decided on Simon Baker from the TV show The Mentalist. The show is about an ex-psychic fraud who lost his family to a serial killer and now uses his powers of observation and suggestion to help an investigative agency catch bad guys, particularly the bad guy that killed his wife and daughter.


The areas I decided to pic on are Mr. Baker's slightly droopy right eye, crooked smile and thick wavy hair. On the show he often wears a vest so I used that in the full body version and I dangled a hypnotist's watch from his hand to promote his reputation for mind tricks.


There you have it, The Mentalist.

Caricature 20/500: JAWS Bonus

I thought it would be a nice idea to close out the JAWS tribute with a group scene so I added one more important part of the movie and put them all together. I had some trouble getting Spielberg to work until I went back to my book to see what Tom exaggerated on him. So there you have it... my JAWS caricature tribute.

Caricature 19/500: JAWS Part 3, Brody

"You're gonna need a bigger boat..." The most famous line of the movie and the scene that still gets me almost every time I watch it. The first time we get a really good look at Bruce the shark too, brief as it was and from that point on it was full speed ahead.


Part 3 of my JAWS series showcases Chief Brody, played by Roy Scheider at the moment before he sees exactly what they are up against. Running the chum line and talking smack about Hooper driving the boat, Chief doesn't see what's sneaking up behind him until it's a little too close (and too big) for comfort.


I took a few liberties on this one. In the movie, Brody wasn't wearing his police uniform but I thought it would add to the recognizability. I also put him in a pair of hip boots. Other than that it is pretty close to what we saw in the film. For the caricature, I skinnied his face and gave him a long chin and curvy mouth. I also lengthened and lumped up his nose. 


I think he turned out pretty good and all three in this series gave me a bit of confidence. If I get time tomorrow maybe I will try to crank out one more bonus sketch for the JAWS theme. Stay tuned!

Caricature 18/500: JAWS Part 2, Quint

 "Y'all know me. Know how I earn a livin'. I'll catch this bird for you, but it ain't gonna be easy. Bad fish. Not like going down the pond chasin' bluegills and tommycods. This shark, swallow you whole. Little shakin', little tenderizin', an' down you go."


The uncomfortable sound of fingernails on a chalkboard introduced us to Quint, the salty dog shark hunter and captain of the Orca in the movie Jaws. Wonderfully portrayed by Robert Shaw, his off-color limericks and monologue of the USS Indianapolis add much to the film's magic.


Just like Hooper, I drew his head first and then added a separate sketch of the body and props. For Quint I didn't do a lot of exaggerating but I did try to make him grumpy looking and weathered. He has sort of a tired/perpetually annoyed look in his eyes.



This one came together pretty easily and I am happy with the results. I had a few days there where I was getting in a groove that I have since fallen in and out of many times. Much like music, there are good and not so good days. This was a fun one to draw. A toast to Quint... Here's to swimmin' with bow-legged women."

Caricature 17/500: JAWS Part 1, Hooper

Today we start my three-part series on my favorite movie, Jaws. I was eight years old when it came out in 1975 and it was the first scary movie I ever went to. It scared the crap out of me. We lived 12 miles from Lake Michigan and I never set foot in that water as long as we lived there. It wasn't even the flippin' ocean. That was 36+ years ago and I still try to watch it once a year.


My first victim is oceanographer Matt Hooper, played by Richard Dreyfuss. Unless you live under a barnacle you have probably seen Jaws at least a few times so I don't need to waste any time on the plot but Hooper was the shark expert who helped identify and kill the "attacking squalus."

First I did a caricature of Dreyfuss from back in the day when he had some hair and then I drew a separate sketch of the hanging shark and his body with the yardstick. I did the body from memory but forgot about the jean jacket. I added the flip flops and watch cap for style points.


If I could make caricatures at this level consistently I would be pretty happy. It shows you how much props can work toward making a caricature come together. You might get Richard Dreyfuss from the head shot above and you might not but once I stick a chubby little body and a shark into the mix it is unmistakably Hooper.

Caricature 16/500: Columbo

For today's caricature I chose an iconic figure. I think you could put a stick man in a raincoat scratching his head and you would know who it is.


Peter Faulk as Columbo was one of my favorite shows growing up, and thanks to Nexflix we still have "Columbo Night" in our house whenever a new DVD shows up.


There isn't really a lot to pick from to exaggerate on the face other than his glass eye which never seemed to quite look in the right direction, the '70s haircut and his perpetual (fake) confused expression.


This was an average one to put together timewise but has more detail than a couple of recent ones. It is recognizable because of the props but to me it looks a little more like Mozart with a headache.

Caricatures 14&15/500: Puddy

Before I ever started this hobby I always saw Patrick Warburton as a bit of a caricature. Every time I saw him as David Puddy on Seinfeld or Jeff Bingham on Rules of Engagement I thought he looked a bit like the Sam the Eagle from the Muppets with his heavy brow seeming to nearly cover his eyes. He is probably much more famous for his voice-over work in Family Guy and a million other animated shows and commercials but I think he makes a good choice for a budding caricaturist. Unfortunately, he proved an elusive target for me. I tried twice but I still don't think I got him.


I asked the lovely Xty if she could recognize the first drawing and she said "Of course, it's the guy from Rules of Engagement. It looks just like him but what did you caricaturize?" I thought I had worked up his brow and squinted his eyes but she was right, there wasn't anything significant going on there.

Try #1

I went back to my sketchpad and tried again. This time I attempted to make his forehead a little bigger and stretch his head a bit but when I asked she said "That one doesn't look anything like him." Not only does it not look like him but I didnt really exaggerate anything on whoever he does look like. I must not have been in a very adventurous mood that day.

Try #2

I still made some good progress in knocking these two out in the same day. They didn't take nearly as long as some of my earlier singles and I am finding myself doing a lot less erasing... other than on eyes. Eyes can make a drawing go from "That's him" to "Who's that?" with the change of one eyelash or wrinkle.  They are really delicate and hard to capture. Back to the drawing board... literally.

Caricature 13/500: Cochran

I've watched the reality show Survivor since the very beginning. There are usually one or two "characters" every season that are outrageous or insane enough to tune in. Once they get kicked off I may or may not stick it through 'til the end.


This last season my go-to guy was John Cochran. He was the Harvard Law School student that was a Survivor Superfan. He had watched and studied every episode, knew every bit of trivia and plot twist from every season and even did his dissertation on a complete formula to win.


He had the right idea but once he got in the real game he became super paranoid and second guessed every decision or word spoken to him. He was Woody Allen reborn, the quintessential 98lb weakling, a Big Bang level brainiac and he entertained the heck out of me. 


I whipped this one out pretty fast. I was trying once again to get away from using too much detail so as to keep it simple and cartoonish. Cochran has a large bulbous red nose and big sticking-out ears. His smile is narrow and long and he has an undeveloped pasty white body. 


It is interesting to note the things I see now that I didn't originally even though it has only been a week or so since I did this drawing. In the picture above, his eyes appear to be smaller than usual and maybe a bit farther apart than normal. I also didn't add any of his patchy Survivor beard or numerous rashes and insect bites.


I can't say that this is a very successful caricature but it came together fast and he is somewhat recognizable if you watched the show. This one won't be going on my wall of fame but it was good practice working on someone less iconic than many of the celebrities I've done previously.
Only 487 to go!

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.

New Toy!

I mentioned my first use of color in a previous post a week or so ago and talked about eventually trying out digital coloring with a tablet. When my wife Xty saw the post she said "That's like what they use on Project Runway to design the outfits, let's get one!" It didn't take much arm bending to get me onboard and thanks to Amazon Prime, a brand new Wacom Intuos 4 showed up on our doorstep last night. 

We decided to go with the large version as the medium seemed a bit small and I read the extra-large was much thicker and bulkier. I promptly installed the software left-handed on my desktop and right-handed on Xty's laptop. I thought this was a pretty neat feature since the LED display changes depending on which way you install it... so we both can read it and use the buttons with our weak hand. Very cool!


I haven't had a chance to mess around with it much but it looks like there will be a bit of a learning curve getting the feel of it. I hope to have a demonstration on here shortly, as soon as I read Tom Richmond's tutorial on digital painting. 'Cause that's all that it will take to make me good, right?

Caricature 10/500: The Dre

I grew up just south of Green Bay, WI. NFL football is in my blood. I learned much of my cursing repertoire from my dad during those rough Packer years between Lombardi and Holmgren. Much like everyone else from my hometown (or home state for that matter), I didn't follow or care about any other teams in the league. Then came fantasy football...


I have been playing fantasy football since we had to do it by hand with a newspaper and calculator. Now it is all computerized on websites with real-time scoring and easy enough for anyone with an interest in the game to be involved. For those that don't play, it's basically drafting a team of real players from any of the NFL teams and using their stats in real games to compete against other people doing the same thing in a virtual league. Instead of caring about just the home team, it makes every game relevant and interesting. Interesting enough to build a sitcom around it and that sitcom is called The League on FX.


This is one of my favorite shows on television. It's very raunchy and uses adult humor extensively. I think of it as if the cast of The Hangover meets Seinfeld. The underlying theme is fantasy football but the episodes are very random, usually involving some unrelated plot that ends up tricking someone to start the wrong player or trade a player to another via the use of extortion or blackmail.


It has a cast full of colorful characters and one of the most colorful is Dr. Andre, the plastic surgeon, played by Paul Sheer. He's the one in the show that is picked on and psychologically abused the most. Andre, or 'Dre as he calls himself, has a goofy gap-toothed smile and is always doing strange things like Urban Foraging and wearing ridiculous clothes that he thinks are trendy.


This is my favorite caricature so far. I think I did a decent job of capturing Andre's look here. The obvious feature to exaggerate is his mouth and smile so that is what I went with while leaving everything else fairly normal.


I wish I could say that I turned a corner on this and things would start getting easier but this was a bit of a lucky result. I am not erasing quite as much as drawing #1 but I am still spending a lot of time on these with unpredictable results. These little glimpses of hope keep me encouraged and brings to mind another of my favorite Steve Martin quotes... "Obsession is a great substitute for talent."

Caricature 9/500: Jimmy Hughes

Flipping through the channels the other day, I came across one of my favorite older shows on one of the rerun cable networks. The show is called Yes, Dear. It starred a lot of people you would probably recognize but who's names you don't know. The girl from Uncle Buck, Mike from Mike & Molly, the old guy who's scratchy voice is in everything, etc. I'm not sure why I liked it. Maybe because they had recurring guest roles by old school sitcom stars like Tim Conway, Jerry Van Dyke and Vicki Lawrence.

My favorite guy on the show was Jimmy Hughes, played by Mike O'Malley. He was kind of a deadbeat highschool partier that moved his whole family in with his movie producer in-laws and became the house guests that wouldn't leave. He always wore a baseball cap and flannel shirt and a large part of his humor was how he didn't quite fit in with his upscale LA neighbors. I can relate!


Mike O'Malley had a short lived spy show a couple years ago with Christian Slater and is now Kurt Hummel's dad on Glee. Anyway, He was on tv at that particular time and I decided he was my next victim. I'm a serial caricaturist. Or at least I hope to be one someday.


This one came together pretty quickly. I am concentrating on not getting too detailed with the linework and keep it a bit cartoony. Jimmy Hughes doesn't have a lot of weird features but I did pick on his nose and chin. 


Happy New Year!!