How to draw a Complex Group Caricature - Final Stages

Now is the time to piece together the individual drawings and merge them in Photoshop

Once they are scanned in as a single black and white artwork, I add layer upon layer of colour until the cartoon looks ‘finished’.

Sometimes it is best to conserve computer memory by colouring in each section before merging together but this causes some matching problems where each image abuts the other.

A few finishing touches like the requested gnomes (I’ve no idea why!) and the client is very happy with the artwork!

Latest glowing testimonial for The London Caricaturist!

The London Caricaturist on Leicester Square TV!

Me interviewed by Jeremy Jacobs while drawing a caricature (under pressure!) for Leicester Square TV.

My WordPress Saviour

I’ve just had a lot of invaluable help from Jeff Houdyschell of WordPress Max whose mission in life is to make WordPress blogging easier for the rest of us by leaping in with expert rescue plans!

He provided the custom template and helped with the set up of Ha! Humorous Arts which is my site devoted to the, er, humorous arts. Well worth a look.

And this is how I rewarded him!

New Ha! (Humorous Arts) Site!

My humour magazine from the 90s is about to see a new lease of life - a mixture of archive material from the printed version and new topical stuff as and when it occurs!

The link http://humorousarts.co.uk/blog will shortlychange to the root folder, http://humorousarts.co.uk, so if you bookmark it now you’ll have to change it later!

The Complex Group Caricature - Composition

I break the picture down into its various sections and work on each one separately, pasting in reduced copies of the heads and gradually refining the surrounding details.

(Click on cartoons to see larger versions.)

Once these are approved, I add the ink and make little changes and improvements as I work.

The next stage is stitching all this together to reach the finished black and white stage!

Caricature Entertainment at Weddings!

Weddings are the ideal occasion to have a caricaturist entertaining guests.

When it comes to entertainment, you always want something spectacular and memorable to make a lasting impression on your guests.

Standard entertainment like bands, discos and magicians are all a very good part of the mix. But what do they leave you with? Wonderful memories, of course, and perhaps they feature in one or two photos but what do your guests take away with them? Nothing!

If you have a cartoonist at your wedding drawing caricatures, your guests are not only highly entertained, ‘victim’ and spectators alike, but they take away a unique memento of your special day! An original piece of artwork.

The caricaturist at a wedding can entertain during the quiet of the Reception before you all sit down to eat, or they can circulate amongst the tables during the early part of the meal (but BEFORE the lights go down and the dancing begins!)

Each sheet of paper can be pre-printed with the names of the happy couple, the date and the venue, so each recipient always remembers your wonderful day.

And, of course, with happy, comic banter accompanying my every move, the whole experience is akin to a multi-media comedy show!

The pics shown here include other parties as well as weddings, but the process of entertainment is the same! Click to enlarge!

The Complex Group Caricature - The Composition

In the brief I have been given several distinct groups of people in different settings. But all of them must come together in one finished illustration.

So, first of all I drew a very rough Rough to show the client.

Next, I start sketching out all the individual scenarios

All these are sent to the client for approval and amendments made if necessary.

Then the next step is to stictch all this together into a finished rough!

Watch this space!.

The Group Caricature continued! Drawing faces - lots of faces!

Once all the photos have been correctly labelled and collated, the first thing I want from a client is agreement that the caricatures are accurate likenesses of each person in the group caricature.

Working on A4 sheets folded in half, I draw rough pencilled versions of each face in the A5 areas.

These are then scanned in (two per page makes for much less scanning) and saved at low resolution for emailing back to the client for approval.

I have found that one in every ten rough caricatures needs a small amendment (which isn’t a bad percentage if I say so myself!). This is usually because of the photos not really looking like the person. I can only draw caricatures from the photos supplied.

When you have a group caricature of up to 60 people, you can begin to understand why it is so labour intensive and the price charged must bear this in mind. There are people out there who cannot understand the difference between a drawing of one person and that of a large group. And they will shop around until they find the cheapest, but not necessarily best quality, solution to their problem. However, I shall leave my customer-haranguing diatribe to a later date! I have plenty of material!

So, once the rough faces have been sent off and all has been approved, what’s the next stage?

Watch this space - it’s composition time!

How to draw a complex group caricature

I had to delay the completion of this particular blog until after the finished framed caricature was delivered to the client, which I did last Tuesday - he was, of course, delighted. Now, I am happy to reveal the stage by stage method of creating a complex group caricature:

The client contacts me and eventually sends me what seems to be hundreds of photos of all the people involved in the caricature.

I like to streamline the process, so rather than print out each photo individually, I use Photoshop to crop them all down to the margins of the face and lay them all out together on sheets of A4. This produces ‘contact sheets’ of all the faces I am going to have to draw.

I make sure I don’t forget who’s who by typesetting names in as I go.

Then the client sends me a list of each person with details of what they should be doing in the caricature. They often send me their own thumbnail sketch which is always a very handy starting point for any artist.

Next: to start drawing all those faces!