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!

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Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• The First Stage of Drawing a Group Caricature
• The Group Caricature continued! Drawing faces - lots of faces!