Sizing Up a Face
The first thing a cartoonist must do in starting a caricature is study the subject's face. Try to mentally superimpose the standard grid onto the face. Try to find areas that deviate from the “norm.” Here are a few questions to direct your observation:
Do the eyes seem to fall in the middle of the head or are they higher/lower?
Does it look as if there is a space of “one eye” between the eyes or is that distance longer/shorter?
Does the nose take up more or less than a quarter of the head's height?
Does the mouth seem wider/narrower than the width of the eyes?
Do the ears protrude from the skull or lie flat? Are they longer or shorter than the distance from eyes to nose?
Are any of the facial features shaped oddly?
Are there any identifying marks on the face?
From Sketch to Caricature
It may help to do a quick “realistic” sketch of the subject before attempting a caricature. Actual people will rarely have faces that follow the grid. Therefore, to draw a believable portrait, you'll need to exaggerate the features slightly anyway. After doing this — and ending with a good likeness — you can then take the process one step further and draw a caricature.
Caricature follows the rules of facial emotion taught in Chapter 9: If it's not important, it disappears. In the case of caricature, if it doesn't help to make the face recognizable, omit it. The remaining features won't have to compete with unimportant ones.
Go through a newspaper or magazine and superimpose a standard grid onto the faces in the photos. Very few will adhere to the grid. This will help you spot the small deviations that help make each face unique. Practice this until you're able to do it mentally.
