Caricature of Zach Braff as JD from Scrubs

This is one I've done as a request for a friend. It's painted digitally in Photoshop, but I'm getting printed out on canvas to see how it looks. I'm really happy how it turned out, both the likeness and the paintjob. I feel like it's another step forward for me, and I'm really enjoying painting at the moment, both digitally and traditionally. Now...who's next? I plan to do an 'Inspirations' series of painitings of people who are an ispiration to me. Bruce Lee and Thom Yorke are included. I can't really say Zach Braff is an inspiration of mine, although I do find him amusing. Got some ideas for a few more paintings though. Stay tuned...

Detail

Bruce Lee painting finished

FINALLY got around to finishing this off, after about a year on the easel. Probably could have done loads more on it, but I couldn't justify spending any more time, going to move on to the next acrylic and play with some more colours. I particularly like the cuts across his stomach, although they're probably more realistic here than they are in the actual film of 'Enter the Dragon'. Why did they make the blood so bright in old movies? 

Anyway, this is another one that I attempted several times, years ago, so I've included the old drawings here for comparison. I think these are from 1998, 1999 and 1999 respectively. Sorry for the bad photo of the painting, it was taken on my iPhone. I'll replace it with a better photo once I get a decent camera.

Thom Yorke Caricature - Digital Painting

Well, I started this one a few months ago, and wasn't particularly happy with how it was going, so I had a break and came back to it. Once I had changed the background, I could see the finished painting in my mind, so it was a joy to complete. Thom Yorke is notoriously 'difficult' to caricature, despite his distinctive features, but I'm really pleased with how this turned out. For fun, I thought I'd compare it to a previous Thom Yorke caricature, which I did about ten years ago. Encouraging to say the least!

Barack Obama Caricature

Today was a milestone in history, not just for America but for the whole world. To see a dream realised, which would have been absolutely inconceivable 40 years ago, shows us that anything is possible in this world.

I started this as a sketch, but as I was feeling inspired, I worked on it a bit more and I'm really happy with the result, I might even paint it eventually! I haven't done any political caricatures before, mainly because I mostly like to draw people who I admire in some way, and I find most politicians quite loathesome. But for me, Barack Obama is a symbol of hope, and the limitless potential in all of us. Maybe the world is coming to its senses...

Bruce Lee Acrylic progress

This has been on the easel for months! I thought posting my progress might inspire me to keep working on it. This is pretty well blocked in, I just need to work on the detail now. It's the first acrylic I've done for ages and I'm really enjoying it.

Sylar sketch

I'm determined to get through the cast of Heroes before the end of season 3. I was struggling with Hiro Nakamura so I thought I'd go for everyone's favourite villain, who seemed a bit more obvious. It still took me about 8 attempts before I got a decent likeness, and it's still not quite right, but it'll do for now. Comments welcome.

Liv Tyler colour study

Just playing with colour on this one, I doubt I'll take it any further as it's not a very interesting painting. I'm going to try and do some more interesting pictures, with people actually doing stuff instead of just facial portraits. Stay tuned!

Improved Thom Yorke sketch

After tons of failed attempts, my sketchbook is full of rubbish, but I finally got a Thom Yorke likeness I'm happy with and that doesn't look much like Jason Seiler's (it's hard to get it out of your mind when you're trying to make exaggeration choices). Will be painting this at some point, either digitally or in acrylics, haven't decided yet. Old Thom's looking a bit old in his recent photos, lot's of grey in the beard, I'll have to play with that.

Simon Cowell revisit

I fixed that hand! I think it looks a lot better than the previous version, if still not quite perfect. Right, on to the next one! (click the image for more detail)

Thom Yorke Sketch

I went to see Radiohead on Sunday for the first time, and they more than lived up to expectations. It was AMAZING! Anyway, Thom Yorke is someone I've caricatured before, but never really got a good one. I want to get a really good likeness before I attempt a painting. Here's my first sketch. It's got elements of his likeness, but overall it needs some work, and more exaggeration. Will revisit shortly.

Eva Longoria sketch (with video)

I usually draw men, purely because they're easier! So I've decided to try and alternate between men and women to get more practice, and so I get to stare at photos of beautiful women for hours on end, without that guilty feeling. So here's the first, Eva Longoria of Desperate Housewives fame. I also recorded the process, which you can see below. I'm always reluctant to record my sketching because I worry that it won't turn out well, but I guess I can always delete the video if I don't like it. Let me know if you enjoy this one, and I'll do more.

Simon Cowell final

Here's my final painting of Simon Cowell, which I started AGES ago! Click for a closer look. This was lots of fun to paint, but I'm glad to be finished.

Update: I've had too much negative feedback about the hand, so I'm going to have to redo it to match the quality of the face. Just need to take a short break from Cowell for a bit!

Update: I fixed the hand - see it here

Simon Cowell update

Here's a more finished sketch of Simon Cowell, I'm going to start painting tomorrow. Any comments are welcome.

Course review - The Art of Caricature with Jason Seiler

Course name: The Art of Caricature
Instructor: Jason Seiler
Website: www.schoolism.com
Duration: 9 weeks
Cost: $898 USD

I've been meaning to write this review for a while, but haven't found the time until now.


Jason Seiler has been an inspiration of mine since I first discovered his website several years ago. I've been a regular reader of his blog since he started writing it, and when he announced that he'd be teaching an online correspondence course through Schoolism.com, I was very excited.

When I first looked at the course details on schoolism.com, I saw that the course cost $898 USD, and I initially thought wow, that's expensive. But based purely on Jason's self-evident talent, I thought this would be something I would definitely benefit from immensely, so I scraped the money together and signed myself up.

Best decision I ever made!

The video tutorials, pre-recorded by Jason, give an amazing insight into Jason's entire method for creating a caricature illustration, from thumbnail sketches, through finished pencil rendering, black and white value painting, monochromatic value painting, and full colour paintings. Most of the lessons start with Jason sketching a caricature and commenting on his thought process and techniques.

In the first few lessons you learn about the basics of caricature, the importance of seeing shapes, and how to make the correct exaggeration choices. Then Jason stresses the importance of values in achieving a realistic likeness, something which I never paid enough attention to before. You get to practice values by painting a black and white value painting and a monochromatic value painting.

Next come the painting techniques. Jason teaches two different painting methods, one which involves layering colour over the top of a black and white value painting, and the other being a more direct painting method. You'll learn about the advantages of using a limited colour palette, and a split-complementary palette to achieve colour harmony.

The last three lessons comprise a three-week long assignment, in which you produce a finished full-colour, full-body illustration. Jason takes you through the entire process, from the conversation with the art director, to the finished magazine illustration, using some of his previous real-life illustration jobs as reference.

The assignments can be tough, and take up a lot of time, but they give you a great opportunity to practice the techniques you learn. After you submit your assignment, Jason will record another video, in which he personally critiques your work, drawing over the top of it to show you where you could improve and giving you advice and suggestions to work on for the next assignment. Some of these critiques last up to 45 minutes, so it's like getting an extra lesson each week. You also get to watch all the other students' critiques, so if you watch them all, there's up to 5-10 hours of video instruction to watch every week!

The course was supposed to last for 9 weeks, but due to some of the assignments being pretty time-consuming, Jason gave us a couple of extensions, and it ended up going on for about 12 weeks.

You'll get the most benefit out of the course if you use a graphics tablet and a painting program such as Photoshop or Painter, as the lessons are taught in Photoshop, and you'll learn a lot of techniques to do with layers, brushes etc, but if you only paint and draw traditionally you can still get a lot out of this course. All of the theory and most of the techniques taught can be applied to any drawing or painting medium.

In terms of value for money, I'd say if you're serious about getting into caricature illustration, or want to improve your technique, you can't afford not to take this course! I've seen vast improvements in my own work, and in all the other students who took the course with me. If Jason ever records a follow-up course, I'm signing up on day one.

Get yourself over to www.schoolism.com and sign up for the next semester. You won't regret it.

Simon Cowell sketch

Here's a quick 15 minute sketch for my next portfolio piece - Simon Cowell from Britain's Got Talent / American Idol. This was just going to be a quick thumbnail to test out exaggeration, but I liked where it was going so I stuck with it, and I think I'll use it as a starting point for the painting. Any comments are welcome.

The Mighty Boosh

This was my final assignment for Jason Seiler's class. Noel Fielding and Julian Barrett aka Vince Noir and Howard Moon from BBC's The Mighty Boosh.


(click to enlarge)

Bruce Willis Caricature

Here's a digital painting I did of Bruce Willis for a Schoolism assignment a few weeks ago.

The Mighty Boosh caricature illustration

Here's a sneak preview of my final illustration assignment for Jason Seiler's Schoolism course. Vince Noir and Howard Moon from The Mighty Boosh. Might need a few more adjustments, then I'll start painting it.

Bruce Lee update

I've been working a bit more on my Bruce Lee Sketch, made it a bit more caricature-like, less portrait-like, and added a bit more tone. I think I'm ready to transfer it to canvas!

Another Bruce Lee sketch

I'm thinking about what to paint on the huge canvas that's been sitting in my room for months. Here's a sketch I did today of Bruce Lee, that I'd like to have a go at painting. I'm trying to make the most of the bank holiday weekend and get a lot of sketching done. Most of the ones I did today were terrible, but I quite like this one. Needs a bit of work on the likeness, and a bit more exaggeration, but it's not bad.

Time for an update

I was looking at my online portfolio just now and thinking that a lot of the older pieces are not really worthy of being in there. My recent work is in a different league to some of those pencil drawings (some of which are over 12 years old!). Most of them are little more than sketches, so I'm planning to remove them from the portfolio, and probably just archive them in the blog, leaving only high quality work on the main website. I might redo some of the old caricatures, as I did with the Fran Healy one, so I can compare old to new and see how much I've improved. It's always encouraging to see your own progress as an artist.

I'm also starting to want a new design for the site (haha - the joys of being a web designer!), but that will have to wait!

Here's some more sketches from Schoolism assignments:

Caricature Assignment 4 - Monochromatic painting of Jason Seiler

The photo for this piece was labelled Matthew. I thought it looked suspiciously like Jason, but figured he might have a brother/cousin who looked like him. Apparently it is him after all. Well, he was fun to paint, and I feel like I'm getting the hang of this values thing. I know we've got a lesson coming up which focuses on painting hair, so I may rework the hair after watching that lesson. Comments welcome.

Schoolism Assignment 3

First post of the year, that's pretty slack. Oh well, I've been busy with work, and doing Jason Seiler's Schoolism course, which I have to say is amazing, I'm learning so much! Here's my third assignment piece. We took a pencil sketch by Jason, and painted values over the top of it, using a photo reference. I made a few small adjustments based on Jason's critique, and I'm pretty happy with the finished product. I think it's my most realistic rendering to date. Hopefully all my future work will be of equal quality.

To see Jason's version, visit his website.

This week we have to produce both the sketch and the monochromatic value painting. I'll post that sometime next week.

Caricature commission

Here's a commission I started ages ago and finished recently. It took me a long time because it's huge, this one is only about 20% of the actual size, so I had to spend a long time on the details. I don't think I'll have time for any more commissions until after I've finished Jason Seiler's online caricature class, so if you want a caricature from me, you can email me around the start of April. Hopefully I will have time for some sketching and maybe some more acrylic painting before then.

Peter Petrelli

Got my scanner hooked up finally, so here's that Peter Petrelli (Milo Ventimiglia) sketch I mentioned earlier. I'm not sure about the mouth, I was trying to capture that drooping lip thing he has sometimes, maybe I'll work on it later. Just started watching season 2 of Heroes, and despite starting off a bit slow, it's got me hooked again!


Peter Petrelli - Save the cheerleader, save the world!

Tags: Peter Petrelli, Milo Ventimiglia, Heroes, Caricature

Happy Birthday Jimmy!

Well, it's almost a month late, but I finally got round to doing this caricature for my good friend Jimmy's birthday present. Here he is looking a little pensive and a little emo. Happy birthday mate!

Bruce Lee painting video

Here's the video of me painting my sketch of Bruce Lee. It took about half an hour so I sped it up to 4x actual speed so you won't get too bored! The music is from Enter the Dragon, Game of Death and Karate Kid (yeah, I know Bruce Lee wasn't in Karate Kid, but hey, it's a martial arts film.) Let me know what you think, and if you have any advice or requests I'm happy to hear them.

Bruce Lee colouring

I added some monochrome tone to the Bruce Lee sketch I did yesterday, and gave him a bit more cranium. I also recorded the process, inspired by Joe Bluhm's video podcasts, I'll post it once I've uploaded it.


Bruce Lee coloured in Photoshop

Bruce Lee sketch

A quick photoshop sketch of Bruce Lee (about 20 mins). I'm still planning a huge Bruce Lee caricature in acrylics, but I want to explore his face a bit more first. Bruce has a lot of classic expressions which I want to test out before I start painting.


Bruce Lee caricature

Joe Bluhm's caricature videos

I haven't posted anything for a while, although I've got a few things on the go, but after watching this amazing series of videos by Joe Bluhm I'm really inspired to get some sketching and hopefully some digital painting done this weekend. The videos show Joe digitally painting over his sketch of Tom Cruise, describing his methods as he paints. A great insight into the mind of a great caricaturist, and the whole painting process only took him just over an hour!!

Tags: Joe Bluhm, Tom Cruise

New photoshop caricature

Here's one I did recently for my friend Paul's birthday. His birthday was actually in July. but I was busy then working on my self-caricature. He doesn't mind. I followed a pretty similar process with this one, except I sketched out the face and got a likeness before I even considered the body. He's a drummer, so I wanted to incorporate that, but I thought a full drum kit would be a bit too much so I went for the djembe drum instead. I took photos of myself with the drum for reference. Now I can get on with the acrylic painting I've been putting off for weeks!


Paul and djembe - click for full-size image

Tags: digital painting, caricature

And the winner is . . .

I'm proud to say I came third in this month's NCN caricature competition, for my self-caricature. Second prize went to Emily Anthony from the USA, and in first place - Shiva Zamanfar from Iran.

My prize will be a book entitled The Artist Revealed: Artists and Their Self-Portraits, donated by Court Jones. Looking forward to browsing through that!

It's an honour to recieve recognition from such talented artists as Court and the other two guest judges Jan Op De Beek and Kage Nakanishi, both of whose art has long been an inspiration for me.

I hope I'll have time to participate in more of the competitions in the future.

Tags: caricature

Self caricature

So, after two months of planning, sketching, rendering and revising, I've finally finished my self caricature, which was done as part of the National Caricaturist Network bi-monthly competition. There were deadlines for each stage, at which point I received a lot of feedback and advice from the judges and fellow NCN members. Overall it was a highly rewarding experience, and a valuable learning opportunity. I did the whole thing in Photoshop, which I had never painted with before. Here's the finished piece, and below you can see the stages I went through to meet the competition deadlines:


The final piece - Click to see detail

The first deadline was to plan out initial concepts in the form of thumbnail sketches. No detail or colour required at this stage, just ideas and general positioning. I decided to use a kung fu theme, substituting a paintbrush for a sword:


Thumbnail sketches - click for a closer look

Then it was time for the initial likeness sketches:

Initial likeness sketch - click for a closer look

I decided to have red paint on the brush, and some red paint streaked across my face, like Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon. It was then pointed out to me that when drawing a face looking downwards like this, you need to pay special attention to perspective, especially the eyes, the outer corners of which should appear higher than the inner corners. As I'd overlooked this, my caricature didn't look like I was looking downwards, it just looked like I had childlike features, because I'd squashed the bottom of the face up without altering the eyes. Court Jones suggested I picture the head as a cylinder and draw guidelines on it to position the features. So here is sketch number 2:


Likeness sketch 2

So I sorted out the perspective thing, but lost the likeness. Here is my final attempt:


Final likeness sketches - click for a closer look

Good likeness now, but in the one on the left I had drawn it slightly slanted, so I just rotated it - the beauty of digital painting! Next stage was the final comp - a detailed sketch of the full caricature including body and any props. I came up with these three poses:


Final comp ideas - click for a closer look

The first sketch was my initial idea, but I thought the rear arm looked awkward, so altered it to the second one, but this was too rigid. I settled on the final sketch, which was deemed the most 'kung-fu' and dynamic. Again, as I was working digitally, I only had to redraw the arm on each image.

The final stage was colouring. Here's my stages:


Colouring stage 1

Here I just got some colour down and tried to get the eyes looking good, as they are often the main key to getting a good likeness. I was told the right eye looked too cat-like and it was suggested this was because I'd made the highlight too big. I think the green was also too bright.


Colouring stage 2

Now I was happy with the eyes, and started work on the body.


Colouring stage 3

I painted the brush handle green to match my eyes (nice touch!) I painted the t-shirt blue as it was in my source photo, but later decided to change it to white for more contrast, and so I could put some red paint on it, as I decided the paint wouldn't be visible on the shadow side of my face.


Final stage of colouring - Click for detail

Here's the finished piece again. I added some paint streaks to my arms aswell, and spent several hours rendering the jeans, shoes and t-shirt. Overall I'm very happy with the outcome, I think it's definitely my strongest piece to date, and look forward to the challenge of doing an even better one next time!

Tags: caricature, photoshop, digital art

Elisha Cuthbert caricature

People often say I don't draw enough women (it's because they're harder!), so here's one. Probably best known as Kim Bauer (Jack's daughter) in 24, it's Elisha Cuthbert. Someone asked me recently to draw some of the older 24 characters. Kim is first, expect more soon(ish).


Elisha Cuthbert

Self caricature preview

I'm currently taking part in a competition on the NCN forum, to produce a full-body self caricature. The idea is that it can be used on promotional materials i.e. website, business cards, stationery etc. The final deadline is in a couple of weeks, after that you should be able to see my picture in the sidebar of this site! Here's a sneak preview of my initial likeness sketch:

Grrrrrr . . . .

In other news, you may have noticed that my blog has gone from black to white. The rest of the website is going to go the same way over the next week or so. I think it's a vast improvement, let me know if you agree.

Tags: caricature

Everyone's a critic

Some Travis fans clearly not impressed with my Fran Healy caricature. The lovely Lavena describes it as "The shittiest 'artistic' rendering of Fran ever." A bit harsh I think! Anyway, that link is my number one source of visitors today, so she's done me a favour really. Thanks Lavena!

Tags: caricature, critic, travis, Fran Healy

Bruce Lee Caricature - First Attempt

Here's a 5 minute sketch I did last night of Bruce Lee. I definitely intend to do a full-sized acrylic painting of the little dragon, but I'm going to try a few different sketch versions first to make sure I get something I'm happy with. It will probably involve his upper body, since it's so distinctive, but I first need to learn how to caricature bodies!!

Bruce Lee - the Legend

I quite like this sketch, considering it took literally five minutes, and I usually spend a lot longer. That's the beauty of digital - no pencils to sharpen, no scanning required, and no problem if you make a mistake! The only problem is I think he looks too young, and maybe his eyebrows are slightly too high. I'll work on that next time.

Tags: bruce lee, caricature

Nathan Petrelli returns

After some advice from various people on the NCN forums, I've made another attempt at Mr. Petrelli. I made his face longer, thinner and not so much emphasis on the jaw. Apart from the wonky eyes (which I just noticed) I much prefer this version.

Sketch of Nathan Petrelli from Heroes

Fly man!! His brother Peter may have the lion's share when it comes to super powers, but will Nathan Petrelli (played by Adrian Pasdar) have the power to go against the plans of his mother and Linderman, to stop the explosion that will destroy New York? Apparently the story will come to a conclusion at the end of season 1. Can't wait to find out what happens!


Wide-jawed Nathan Petrelli - Fly man!

NCN Firing Squad

Here's a sketch of Tony 'Parsnips' Parsons, a fellow member of the National Caricaturist Network. You can see his caricature of me here.


Parsnips

Sketch of Hiro Nakamura from Heroes

Yata! Here's my favourite character from my new favourite TV show, Heroes - Hiro Nakamura, played by Masi Oka. As well as playing a loveable, time-and-space-bending superhero, Oka is also a digital effects artist, having worked on the Star Wars prequels and Hulk, among others. Oh and he also played the intern Franklin in Scrubs (I knew I'd seen him somewhere before). Hiro always keeps me laughing with his childlike optimism, and I cracked up when he phoned his company in Japan, and inadvertantly spoke to his past self. Fearing causing a rift in the space-time continuum, he slammed the phone down and came out with a very Japanese-sounding "Great Scott!" It's classic comedy moments like that, and a gripping storyline, which makes Heroes my favourite, over both Lost, which I still watch, but only because it's there, and 24, which has lost the suspense that made the second and third seasons so great. I can only hope Heroes doesn't go the same way. There are some great faces in the show too, I'll draw more when I can.

Hiro Nakamura- "Save the cheerleader, save the world."

Caricature of Court Jones

Another one from the NCN firing squad, the great Court Jones, master of all things anatomical, and all-round nice guy, he's been a source of much inspiration for me, so I thought it only fair to caricature him. I chose a tricky angle, but I think I pulled it off quite well, and I'm happy with the greater level of exaggeration than usual. Check out Court's website for some of his amazing work.


Caricature of Court Jones

Tags: Court Jones, Caricature, Illustration

Sketch of Faye Wong

I tried Faye a while back, but wasn't quite satisfied with the results. Here's another attempt, and I think it's a bit better. She's got such a unique face, it's pretty hard to capture a likeness. If I decide to colour this one I may have to play around with the features some more.


Caricature of Faye Wong

Gandhi's Fight Club

Here's a sketch I did of Mahatma Gandhi for a recent competition on the NCN forum. The competition was to draw an illustration for a made up magazine article entitled 'Secret History', which depicted a historical figure revealing a secret side of themselves. My idea was to show Gandhi participating in an underground fight club (much like the movie), in order to release some of the aggression he built up through a lifetime of non-violence. This sketch was just a facial likeness study. I intended to draw Gandhi in the ring, surrounded by spectators, with blood on his robes and an evil grin on his face, but unfortunately I don't have time to keep up with the competition deadlines, and to be honest, after watching the movie Gandhi, I'm going off the idea of drawing him in this way, it just seems wrong! Anyway, I may revisit it at a later date.

Another redesign

Well, so much for my caricature per week idea. I've been busily trying to finish a portrait commission for a friend, I'll definitely produce something new this weekend. As well as the portrait, I've been busy coming up with a new design for drawmyface . . . again! Yes, the site has seen several redesigns over the last couple of years, but this one is going to be better than before. Since getting into web design as a job, I've learned many things about what makes a good web site. I'm finally ditching the light on dark look, and going for a more readable white background with dark text. And more importantly, the site will finally be XHTML compliant, using CSS to style the page, rather than HTML tables (if you don't know what any of that means, you probably don't need or want to know). Suffice it to say, it will be nicer looking, cleaner, and easier to navigate than ever before. Here's a sneak preview of the initial concept, although it may take some time for me to actually implement the design.


New design for drawmyface.co.uk

In the meantime, check out Paul Moyse's great video of how to paint a caricature in Photoshop - amazing stuff. I hope to make some videos like this when I get a bit better at the digital stuff.

Tags: caricature, illustration, photoshop

Caricature of Fran Healy from Travis

My second attempt at digital caricature. I'm starting to get a feel for the Wacom tablet now, but I've still got a way to go. This is based on my previous Fran Healy drawing, but I wanted to move away from that small cartoony body thing I used to do, so I made his neck thicker, and his body bigger. Well, for my second try, I'm pretty happy with this, but I will continue to aim higher!


Fran Healy - Digital caricature

More caricatures of me!

Here are some more caricatures of me by some more of the lovely NCN members. It's recently come to my attention that I have a huge nose!

Oh well, it never gets boring seeing how other people see you, it's just hard finding the time to return the favour.


Dan by Parsnips


Dan by Jan Ibelings


Dan by Moyse

And here's one I did in return for Paul Moyse:

I've gone digital - Wacom has arrived!

After many months of marvelling at other artists' digital masterpieces, I've finally taken the plunge and bought myself a Wacom graphics tablet, so now I can draw directly onto my PC using the stylus. Well, it takes some getting used to, but it's great fun!

Here's my first digital effort, a colour version of the Tom Welling sketch I did a few weeks ago. I opened the sketch in Corel Painter, created a new layer, then painted over the top, using the sketch as a guide. As you can see, I need a lot of practice!



Anyway, I'm having great fun with the Wacom, hopefully I'll improve with a few more goes. I don't want this to put me off drawing and painting the traditional way, although it is a lot less hassle than setting up the easel, and washing all the paintbrushes afterwards!

In other news, I just noticed that I recently passed the 100 blog post mark. Congratulations to me!

Sketch of the day

Another NCN member, Kathryn Bailey:
I'm happy with the overall likeness and composition, but I thinnk I need to work on my shading, it can look a bit scribbly. Maybe I need to keep my pencil sharpened!

Tags: caricature

Caricatures of me

Here's a couple more caricatures of yours truly, done by fellow members of the NCN. The first is by George Malek, loving the huge nose and thick eyebrows. The second one is by Kathryn Bailey, with more of a pointy nose, but equally thick eyebrows, and looking rather sinister in fact. I can see myself in both of them, and it's really interesting to see what different people see in my face! I'll get them back soon!


Dan by George Malek


Dan by Kathy Bailey

Tags: caricature

A couple of drawings

Here's a recent commission for a birthday present, and below, a sketch of Mike Paglia, a fellow NCN member. One of the many advantages of joining online caricature forums, is that you can draw the other members, and they will draw you in return!


Caricature Commission



Mike Paglia by me

Here's one that Mike did of me previously. Not strictly a caricature, but I like the idea that I can fire laser beams from my eyes!


Dan by Pag

Tags: caricature

Caricaturists of the week

Been a little busy recently, I'm currently working on two commissions, one painting and one drawing, I'll post them when they're finished.

In the meantime, I want to share with you a few blogs I have only recently discovered, but which consistently inspire me to draw better caricatures. Some of these guys are professional illustrators or artists, but some are just regular people like me , or even you! I usually find I draw better after browsing these guys' work for a few minutes. So subscribe to their blogs, and be inspired . . .

Single Serving Jack - Caricatures by Neil Davis. Neil never ceases to amaze me with the realism of his paintings and digital art. Check out his Hot Fuzz painting!

ROBOLUS - Sketches and Studies from Roberto Freire. Roberto's pencil sketches are flawless. And he does one (almost) every day! Check out his Eva Longoria caricature.

Rejects - The art, sketches and ramblings of Joe Bluhm. Joe is so good, people are plagiarising his caricatures! He also has some cool videos of him drawing live.

Ken Coogan Caricatures - Another one who constantly inspires me. Check out his Ricky Gervais. Not even finished and it's already amazing!

Jason Seiler - I've mentioned him before, but he deserves another shout out for his exquisite paintings. His Jack Black study is one of my favourites.

Niall O Loughlin - Ireland's finest. Niall's recent Wayne Rooney caricature shows his skill with acrylics. He even shows you how he did it.

Those are the ones that spring to mind, although I know there are countless others out there that I just haven't come across yet. If you know of any good-uns let me know.

Tags: caricature, illustration

Caricature of Tom Welling from Smallville

**Warning** -- Smallville Spoilers below --

I was watching Smallville last night. Lana Lang had just married Lex Luthor to save Clark Kent's life after being blackmailed by Lionel Luthor. They had just got into the wedding car, and Lana turned her head to see Clark standing behind the crowd, looking on in disbelief.

In that shot, I saw the curve of Tom Welling's prominent jaw, and I had to freeze the video and grab my sketchpad. The caricature jumped out at me, and I know that when inspiration hits you like that, you have to stop what you're doing and capture the moment.

So I started with the jawline, which is something I rarely, if ever do (I usually start with the eyes as they tend to hold the key to a good likeness). Then I completed the outline of the head, before filling in the features. I liked where it was going, so I spent some time on shading. Overall, I'm happy with the likeness, but I think I could have made the top part of his face
a bit narrower to accentuate his huge jaw. Also I'm not entirely pleased with the hair, but I just need practice with that. Any feedback is always welcome.

I'm planning to do one of Kristin Kreuk who plays Lana too. She has a beautiful face which may prove quite a challenge to caricature.


Tom Welling as Clark Kent in "Smallville: Superman - the Early Years"

Tags: Tom Welling, Smallville, Clark Kent, Superman, Caricature, Kristin Kreuk

Caricatures - to stretch or not to stretch

My god, I've just realised how long it's been since I've drawn anything. I'm going to do some tonight come rain or shine.

In the meantime let's discuss a common debate in the world of caricature - "How exaggerated does a face need to be in order to qualify as a caricature?" There are those who believe the more exaggeration the better, and like to twist a face almost beyond recognition, and then there are people who prefer a more subtle, portrait-like caricature, sometimes barely stretching the features at all. So which one is right?

Actually, I don't think either method can be considered right or wrong. Every artist has his or her own style, and they shouldn't try to conform to what others consider to be the correct way of doing something. Sure, if a caricature is extremely exaggerated and still retains an uncanny likeness, it is very impressive and a rare talent. Many artists are able to draw realistic portraits, but struggle when it comes to caricatures. But I think that a restrained caricature can be just as effective, if not more so. In fact, some of my favourite caricatures are the ones where at first glance you're not sure if it even is a caricature, or a straight portrait. Only on closer inspection do you notice the subtle distortions which make the face come to life. An example of this kind of caricature is this version of Mick Jagger by Terry Dunnett. The likeness is so spot on that at first you just think it's a portrait of Mick.


Mick Jagger by Terry Dunnett

Personally, my caricatures have never been really exaggerated. I started out with more of a comic portrait style, and gradually began to favour more realistically rendered, only slightly stretched caricatures. Maybe you could put it down to lack of skill, or lack of sufficient practice. Either way, I still prefer to keep my paintings strong in likeness, even at the expense of an extreme level of exaggeration.

Recently Sebastian Kruger unveiled a new caricature of Clint Eastwood, and many of his fans criticised him for starting to lean away from caricature, some saying that it was just a straight portrait. However, if you look closely you'll find that there are many subtle distortions of the face, it's just that the amazingly high level of realism makes you think it's simply copied from a DVD still frame or a photo. Don't get me wrong, I think Kruger's earlier work, when he tended to exaggerate more, is fantastic. I just don't consider it to be any more worthy of being called 'caricature' than, say, the Clint Eastwood, or this recent Jimi Hendrix.

Anyway, the debate will no doubt continue. The hardcore exaggeraters will continue stretch faces to their limits, while the restrainers will keep on keeping it more realistic. And I'll keep practicing until I find a style I'm happy with . . .

Self caricature and street caricature

So here's the self-caricature I did last night.



Like I said, it's not perfect, but I think it looks a bit like me, and it's the best I've done so far. Anyway, I'm going to play with it some more, make sure it all fits on the page, then hopefully I'll get round to painting it eventually.

On the subject of me, I dug out a caricature I had done on the streets of Sheffield a few years ago by some random bloke.



I wasn't really that impressed with it to be honest. I think he went for the 'cute caricature' look, and ended up making me look like a 5 year-old. Anyway, hopefully I can come up with a better likeness than this. Watch this space.

Tags: caricature

The art of self-caricature

A self-caricature is something every caricature artist should have at least one of, if only for something to use as an avatar on various caricature forums and the like. I have done a self-portrait before, which now has pride of place on my Granny's living room wall, but I've never managed a decent caricature of my own mug. Mostly it's due to my perfectionism. If I'm going to do something, I have to be 100% happy with it before I'll show it to anyone, and that applies even more if it's going to portray my likeness to the world. I've tried to caricature myself before, with results ranging from disatrous to mediocre, thus none of them have ever seen the light of day. There is an inherent difficulty in drawing yourself, and that is that we all have a preconceived idea of what we look like, which will always conflict with what we actually see. It's not easy to draw your own flaws, let alone exaggerate them!

Anyway, I've started working on self-caricature again, and after a few contributions to the waste paper bin, I finally came up with something that actually resembles me. I've forgotten to bring it with me this morning, but I'll post it tomorrow so you can tell me whether I've hit the mark or not. I'm not 100% satisfied with it, but maybe I'll come up with something better in the meantime.

Tags: caricature, drawing