Editorial Cartoon: Caricature Fail

 

This cartoon was inspired by my attempts over the last 4 months to do more caricature work.  If you get a caricature done by me or someone else there are several reactions you may have.

1. Wow that picture is great and it looks like me.
2. Wow that picture is great but I am not sure it looks like me.
3. That picture isn’t good/flattering but it does look like me
4. That picture sucks and it doesn’t look anything like me.

I have run the gamut of reactions to my own work, though I have only had one person actually tell me number four (yet more probably felt that way).  I had my wife, and biggest critic, look over the work and she said “Yeah it looks like her, she just isn’t that attractive.”  I find that women are way more sensitive to you pointing out prominent characteristics in caricature.  I tend to go more realistic versus cartoony as I do with men.

A piece of advice I got from Jerry Dowling, former Cincinnati Enquirer editorial cartoonist and caricature artist, is that you should over emphasize the size of women’s eyes…they seem to like that.  He may or may not have said something about boob size too, I can’t remember.

He related a story of live drawing a caricature of a woman as her husband was looking over his shoulder.  Suddenly, her husband, who obviously thought the drawing wasn’t pretty enough, said “Don’t you know she is a former Beauty Queen.”  To which Jerry handed him his pen and said “Great, so you finish up the drawing”

Joel Poirier takes on Bearman

This incredible version of the BEARMAN is compliments of Joel Poirier, cartoonist extraordinairre, and creator of Stripped Comics (don’t get any ideas, it is not porn – it’s about Superheroes.)

I have been doing some caricatures on Google Plus that I call “muggings”.  You can check out some I have done here.  Joel thought I should get a taste of my own medicine and drew this up for me.  Love it!!

Make sure to check out Joel and follow him on Google Plus or Facebook

 

UPDATE

Ryan Klassen of City Folk the Webcomic wanted to join the party too so he did a mash up of Steve Buscemi and Bearman.

Find him on Google Plus too.

 

 

 

 

 

Will the real Nate Fakes please stand up

Ladies and Gentlemen.  The man you see pictured above is Nate Fakes.  Mad Magazine and Break of Day cartoonist Nate Fakes.  And hands down, the worst person in the world for me to try to caricature.  If it is the first time or the 20th time trying I can usually get to some semblance of the person even if the end result isn’t flattering (sorry Myra).

But there is nothing distinguishing about this kid. Here are several of my failed attempts. The first being the one that probably looks most like him but the last being my favorite.

Mad Art of Caricature and Made for Art

So I was excited to get the mail this week and find my ordered copy of Tom Richmond’s The Mad Art of Caricature.   For the uninformed, Tom is one of the regular artists for Mad Magazine along with a host of other projects.  Pretty much most of the movie/tv spoofs of the last 10 years has been his work.  He also hosts a blog and has been an invaluable resource on copyright and caricatures.

Here is my signed copy.

On this blog post you can see Tom actually drawing the Alfred E Neuman to ship to me (ok maybe it wasn’t mine but it looks like it COULD be).

The book looks amazing and I can’t wait to dig in and find out all the things I have been screwing up in my own caricatures.  But Tom, I think your foreign printer messed up a little with this insert.  I can’t find this book or this author online..haha

On a separate note, I want to give a shout out to a Google Plus friend who has been very supportive over there.  Artist Eric Johnson has created a new site called Made for Art .   This is how he describes the site:

If you enjoy browsing interesting, creative sites showcasing the talents of interesting, creative people, you should check out my new site. Whether its art, poetry, webcomics, ebooks, sculpture, photography, crafts or hobbies, etc., let MADE FOR ART be your link to Creative Minds .   And if you are a Creative Mind and would like to share your work and links on this unique, up and comings site, just let me know you’d like to be added to the MADE FOR ART circle!

Head over there as he has featured my work and if you want Eric to include you in the future reach out and support him.

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