For this exercise, I was to create a full-body caricature of a famous person. Usually starting something like this would be difficult given the breadth of possibilities available. However, I had been listening to the Foo Fighters recently, so I thought Dave Grohl, their lead singer, would be a good choice. Rather than overthink and then convince myself to change my mind, I just cracked on.
I started by doing an internet image search of the artist and selected a few options from different angles to try and draw from. I have never done caricature before, so I also watched some instructional videos to give me some ideas on how to approach creating an exaggerated likeness. With my preparations ready, I made some initial sketches in my sketchbook.
My initial sketches seemed promising, as I started to tune into what made Grohl’s features distinctive. I tried to find some variations in the reference images I was finding. I was also listening to their latest album which covers a number of Bee Gees songs, which made me think of dressing him up in 70s gear.
Out of all of these sketches, I actually like the sketch at the bottom the most. I didn’t think it was right to turn into my exercise piece, mainly as I was not sure how to turn it into a full-body image. However there are a number of choices that I made which I really like stylistically that I would like to carry over into future work. I wanted to play more with distortion and exaggeration, so I decided to do a digital experiment. I started with a different reference photo of Grohl, and then started by exaggerating the size of his head. After that, I manipulated his nose and jaw area, his more prominent features to create a wildly exaggerated overlay. I then digitally traced this image to see the final result.
Looking at the image, it felt stilted and while more technically exaggerated, it didn’t look right. Which made me start to think that a key ingredient of caricature was to see into the essence of somebody with their features, and the caricature is a reduction of the impression of a person. So I decided to do another sketch, this time trying full body but leaning into the 70’s feel. Under their pseudonym “The Dee Gees” the band have commissioned promotional material for their album. I used one of these photos as a point of reference.
I was much happier with this image, and thought that it would make a good final image. I scanned the sketchbook page for my learning log, but as I did that I saw the new album art for the covers. Titled “Hail Satin” the record had a real tongue-in-cheek humour to it, so I (of course) thought the best course of action would be to try and redesign the front artwork of the album! I then spent an unecessarily long amount of time researching 70s album art. There was, annoyingly, a dramatic variety. I found it hard to boil down the essence of what made something 70s, so I decided to go with my own interpretation, trying to hone into the disco vibe of the Bee Gees music. I even created my own record label logo to give the artwork a feeling of pastiche authenticity.
I also created the band name as a vector image, and found a font used widely at the time for album covers. Having all the layout components in place, I created the image itself by inking over my sketch. I thought about if I was going to extend to the feet, but decided to use the original composition in the layout of the album cover. I used the inking process to fix certain elements in my sketch. I then coloured by creating flats comprised of vector shapes. Once I was happy with the image, I then iteratively played around with the composition to get one that I felt worked best.
Finally, I added in pixel shading using the shapes as clipped bounds. This time I experimented with using coloured layers with blending adjustments (like multiply, lighten etc.) instead of using curves adjustment layers. I also added distressed effects to the image to make it look like a well-used record from the 70s.
I thought that I was done at this point. However, when showing it to other OCA Illustration, VisComms and Graphic Design students to elicit feedback one of them suggested I do a mockup. Well - I had gone this far, so why not? I inserted my final image into a mockup and then altered the background to make it more disco appropriate. A tweak of The overall colour tones to better fit the album and I was done.
I found this exercise really fun, and incredibly useful to start to teach myself how to not worry as much about things being anatomically perfect. The opportunity to practice exaggeration in a structured way has helped me a lot.
Comments