[Looking for feedback] My first (good) caricature!
2yr
Jason Arizona
Hey, proko community! I am hot off the 100 heads challenge from Ahmed Aldoori, and noticed one of my main issues for most of it was capturing a likeness.
For my first caricature, I chose comedian/youtuber Trevor Wallace (because I drew his hands 300 times in different poses across three days) He has a pretty distinct facial structure, with a very square face and prominent cheekbones that go down to his chin.
I've attached a picture of the finished painting, the thumbnail sketch, and the original reference (a frame from https://youtu.be/FApbkER3uIY?t=13). I think that through the process of drawing, the head's pose changed slightly.
Overall I think this was a pretty successful painting! The only major flaws I can see are that there's a slight tangent around where his smile line meets the nose, the brushwork is a tad sloppy, and the hair could be a bit more interesting. Maybe with some more color notes. The colors are also a bit flatter than I'd like, though I guess that's just a product of how I work.
I like the very polygonal shape language, though. Looking Leyendecker-y is usually a good thing! What I may not be so keen on is the fact it looks like I'm aping Court Jones (the person who teaches the caricature fundamentals course here) a bit too closely. I hope that's just a product of using the same process, which can be fixed as I get deeper into drawing faces and heads.
So, all in all, I'm proud of this painting, but I'm entirely willing to believe in a couple month's time I'll look back at it and wince.
What do you think? Where could I improve? What am I doing right?
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2yr
Hi @Jason Arizona, nice caricature! I really like the expression you created. And the clear planes in the features (eyes, nose mouth) gives the face structure.
I'm not a caricature expert, but I took Court's course back in 2020, so I'll do my best to help you further:
- I tried doing some thumbnail sketches myself and made some notes. Hopefully they could be useful :)
- I would try to make the whole head look more three dimensional. This could be done by clarifying the side plane of the head.
-"and noticed one of my main issues for most of it was capturing a likeness."
I chose to take the caricature course because I wanted to learn how to capture likeness. I wanted to be able to make a portrait of a family member for example, and make sure it looked like that person. The caricature course helped some, but what I actually needed for that goal, wasn't caricature skills, but stronger drawing skills. If I draw with accurate shapes it will look like the person I'm trying to draw/paint.
It would be interesting to hear what your goals are. What are your goals with taking the caricature course? What are your goals with learning art? Do you want to be an animator, concept artist, portrait artist, caricature artist or something else? If I know your goals I might be able to help you better.
I've been giving a lot of thought to what my goals are the last few months, and it has really helped me study more efficiently, and use the skills I already have more succesfully.
Cheers!