Monday, August 26, 2019

Breaking Habits - Girl Head Shape Doodle Studies


The reason I draw a lot of caricatures is to look for new head shapes and features that my hand is not used to drawing.
This reporter below has a really interesting mouth and when she speaks it forms all kinds of unique shapes. I need to study her again but she's not on the news as much as others.
 
It’s so easy to fall into the habit of drawing generic animation shapes that we are so used to that they've become second nature.
For example Sody Pop is a slight variation on the stock animation pretty girl structure – as is Red Hot Riding Hood, Coal Black, Elmer Fudd, Tinkerbell and a million more.
 
 
There are also many animated characters based on the more simplified UPA-ish stock woman head shape - the Betty Rubble template:
 
When I do caricatures I try to absorb the new shapes I see and hope that on another day, I can take inspiration from them to come up with less realistic, more cartoony designs.

Real people’s heads and features (bodies too) come in an infinite variety of shapes and proportions.

There is a commentator who has a rocket or bullet shaped head.
My first drawing of her is hesitant and conservative as I slowly try to understand her features.
A couple days later I tried some simpler, more cartoony variations.
 









 
 
 
I go through a lot of paper hoping that eventually I'll end up with a couple of cartoony designs I might be able to use for something.

Thursday, August 22, 2019

Doodles News Heads

News Heads

Atencio



Senators and Julia Ainsley (reporter)
 
  
Booker and others
 Fareed and  2 others
On the ground reporter

Sunday Anchor, guests and African leader




Oh and I have been contemplating making some stickers of dogs and pups.



Saturday, August 17, 2019

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: