Caricature Tips: From study to evolution

1 study the person cautiously

My first drawings of a person are boring and conservative. I am analyzing what makes the person’s features distinct from the average or “ideal” proportions.

The first most obvious thing I noticed about this newswoman was how long her face was.

I also saw that she has a long jaw and that her upper lip is very close to her nose.

Her mouth and lips have a unique shape too but it’s hard to put into words.

She has big eyes and heavy mascara too.

2 Exaggerate what I’ve analyzed.

I made the eyes bigger and the jaw longer but drew her forehead too high – which lessons the effect of the long jaw.

3 Study more features more closely

It was a few weeks ago I first drew her. Today she was on a news program again so I studied her some more.

I noticed some things that I missed in the first drawings.

Her eyes are lopsided. One is higher than the other.

When she speaks, one side of her upper lip stretches higher than the other so I tried to capture that but didn’t go far enough to make it noticeable.

4 Now try again to exaggerate what I’ve learned

Shorter forehead to contrast against long jaw.

Eyes more lopsided.

Lips more asymmetric.

I noticed something I missed before: her eyes bulge out.

5 Push it all further

I tried to make the eyes bulgy and even more lopsided.

The more I draw a person and get comfortable visually articulating her/his features the easier it gets to exaggerate distinct features.

Although in this case, I forgot the angle on her lips.

(I draw this stuff while the person is on TV talking in real time and they keep cutting away to something else so when I look again she’s not there.)

6 Get confident and let go.

The more I understand what is unique about somebody the more I can distort and exaggerate.

There are still some subtleties I haven’t captured so I’ll have to wait till she’s on TV again.

In the meantime you can watch Josh evolve from blandness to goofy:

Alladin's Lump

 For those who love bald characters with speech impediments here's a Wally Man story outline.

Inking and coloring step by step - Alien Stickers

Sorry I haven't posted for a few days. I've been working on some new stickers of Binto, Blop and currently some aliens.

I thought I'd share my process with you one step at a time.

Sketch Design

 

Import into TB Animate 3 and start inking 

I have Harmony but I like the brush better in Animate.
I usually start with the body, inking the biggest shapes first.

  

 Finish outline of body - rough

 I try to use as few strokes as possible because it makes the rest of the process easier.

 You can see that the rough inking has some overlapping lines so I then start cleaning them up.

Clean Up Body

Start Inking Head

Again I start with the outline of the biggest shape.

Clean Up Head

I like to use layers - head under eyes, nose etc...

Start Inking Features

 On separate layers.

 Inking Finished

Once the inking is done and separated into logical layers, it's ready to color.

 Start Filling Colors

I start filling the body colors first.

Finish Body Fills

Start Filling Head

 Finished Head and Body Fills

Now it's ready to take into Photoshop to add a little rendering.

Trees Struggle and New Character

I suck at backgrounds but every now and then I take a whack at them just out of curiosity. Here are some trees I sketched a couple days ago.

 

 

 I got frustrated with trees then tried my hand at some desert life.

Well that was none too encouraging either.

Maybe some sea life (without the damn backgrounds) might ease my frustration.

 Not so much. Well here are some heads I saw on the news.

 Hey did you ever notice that news reporters and anchors have their own unique dialogue mouth shapes? I've been wanting to study that for awhile and finally got down to it after my tree fails.

 Some even have fish lips.

Oh and here's Francie Fancy-Ass promoting my color doodles.