David Beckham Site Ready to Launch!

Amongst my many studio jobs that I have been juggling recently, some of you may remember that I have been commissioned to draw cartoons and caricatures for The Unofficial Website of David Beckham.

This is a humorous website based on the spoof interviews with Becks on Los Angeles radio station K-Earth 101. Here’s the front page.

I drew a series of cartoons for various parts of the website which will be launched very soon as The Beckham Diaries.

Here’s a selection of the cartoons which you can enlarge by clicking on them.

   

Caricature for The Vita Group

This is the latest caricature commission off the drawing board.

It’s a Black and White A3 caricature which I draw from photos submitted by email. The client supplies all the additional information, hence the kilt, cigarette, Diet Cokes, Choccy Bics and Blackberry.

As an ex-newspaper cartoonist, I ‘m quite keen on the traditional ‘newspaper style’ of cross-hatching. This is the method by which it is possible to suggest depth and form and is totally engrossing.

Now, I have to get back to the final two cartoons for the Beckham Project! More on that later!

How to draw a Caricature

I’m de-mystifying my craft now, but you might like to see some of the processes involved in drawing a caricature:

Here’s the incredibly lovely, talented and shy and retiring Victoria Beckham::

The first stage is to LOOK at the basic shapes within the head. Then sketch these down as faithfully as you can. But, bearing in mind that we’re looking for a caricature, not a portrait, decide which key features need to be bigger or smaller than normal. Here, we can emphasize the pout and tip of the nose to great effect.

The next stage is a refinement of these quick pencil lines. The eyes become more defined and an idea of where tonal cross hatching will be effective is already indicated:

Then we go into these quick sketchy lines and continue to refine them to a much more finished stage. now we are clear about where the ink has to go.

The first ink stage is mainly outlines and at this stage we pause to check that the likeness is there. It is sometimes the case that what looked good at rough stage just doesn’t translate over when it is inked. Ink is such a definite medium that it can rob a drawing of immediacy which it nearly always has as a rough.

Fortunately, I think this one succeeds and we are now ready to add the finishing touches by way of cross hatching which adds depth and brings a face to life. And there we have a finished caricature.

I will often go over this in Photoshop adding colour, but a pure black and white caricature is always satisfying by itself.

I now fully expect to have a lot of competition! Get your pencils out and start practising!