Some thoughts on caricature fundamentals

posted 6.24.10 at 12:00 am
 I was contacted by an artist who is relatively new to caricature, who sent me some samples to critique.  After mulling them over and seeing a lot of the same issues I see in many inexperienced caricature artists, I decided to whip up a small tutorial of sorts.  
Actually not so much a tutorial, but an attempt to explain what goes through my head when starting a caricature, in this case from a photo, for a quick sketch caricature.

This artist had bad habits that are shared by many:  In doing caricatures, no matter if it's live quick-sketch work or magazine illustration, simply getting the shapes of the individual features is not enough.  What's more important than that is the relationships between the features.  How far does the nose pull away from the eyes, to the mouth, etc etc.  That's a whole blog post in itself that I hope to do soon.

In caricature, what I find the most important overall is this: head shape.  If you've ever seen a live caricature artist who's work you look at and think, 'it's ok, but it looks alot like that last one he did, and the one before that...', chances are, among other things, that artist isn't paying any attention to the over shape of the subject's head.

Here's a sample this artist sent me (I decided to keep her anonymous).  Not a terrible Obama, but not good.  Among other things, what would have made it more successful was more attention to the outside of the face.  To illustrate this idea, I took the drawing, reduced the opacity and put a few simple lines to outline the head....

If this was a successful caricature, you'd be able to 'see' Obama somewhere in this blue outline.

In order to become a successful caricaturist, you have to get the fundamentals down.  A pitfall that is also very prevalent in inexperienced artists is the lack of mentally breaking down the face ahead of time.

When we, as humans, see other people, we can distinguish one other human from the next very easily, even though our faces only vary in millimeters. We have learned instinctually to instantly break faces down to their bare minimums (basic shapes) and compare those to others in our memories to decipher who's who.

An example of that is this: This is an Obama reference she used to do her drawing.
What I do is squint so I can just barely make out the photo. What you end up seeing is a blurry image consisting of only the details that require more of your attention while drawing, in other words, the parts off the face that require more emphasis.
What stands out now is the important stuff: in this case, dark eyes and a big smile.
 Not coincidentally, this is where you get a better idea of HEAD SHAPE.   This blue line sketch is what you should have in your mind to refer to when drawing.  All this takes place very quick and consciously.  For practice when new, these are the kinds of quick simple studies you will want to fill up a sketchbook with.  After a few hundred of these, you'll hopefully find that exaggeration and emphasis will come to you quicker an quicker until it becomes almost an unconscious decision.

This is a basic run-through of one of the most basic types of caricatures; simple head and shoulders.

Again, squint at the photo. What comes through should be something along the lines of drawing 1.   The blue arrows are there to emphasize that I see his face as being very tall and very narrow.
I know now I'm going to give emphasis on those eyes and that smile. This is the point most caricature artists go off in goofy directions. Note that that ear almost disappears when you squint! Yet, most artists want to give him big, distracting ears. That's because it's an easy feature to blow up. But just because someone has ears that stick out from their head, you have to decide if you want to give that feature all the attention. That's the thinking that separates the really good caricature artists from the really crappy ones. Don't take the easy road! In this case, his ear is there, yes, but it's by no means distracting! That smile draws the most attention, if you ask me. Then those dark eyes. Emphasizing the things that demand your attention is how you make a good caricature that really 'feels' like that person.


So... in 1 I've broken down the face and stretched a few things like his chin that I want to use to eventually emphasize that smile. In 2, I've filled in a few of the gaps, and blocked it out more. The little arrows to the right are little directional things that help me remember that if you pull the sides of the mouth up, you pull the chin down in response. This is an example of push-pull in caricature.

in 3 I've begun to fill in more of the gaps. In all of these drawings, you should be able to see the subject in each. If you get to a point in a drawing where, say, the previous sketch looked more like the subject, BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF and back up! It's ok to erase!

4 is the final of these. I had the underlying structure in the blue line sketch, and I referred back to the photo for the details.

The goal here is not only to draw caricatures well enough to do gigs, but also to rise to the top and do the best caricatures you can! It takes more work, but I guarantee, if you're committed to doing this right, this will pay off:  These fundamental exercises apply to lots of forms of art, not just quick sketch party caricatures!


draw time , on the board      

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