Nate Kapnicky....Barf oh riffic Caricature artist....

Nate Kapnicky is a guilty pleasure.... If I ever let my dark side loose, I would want to draw like Nate Kapnicky..... Nate is a master at chewing up faces, spitting them out, and using the uneaten parts to make caricatures. His Blogsite, "Jackin faces" is not for the faint of heart,or those of you who like those cute and fuzzy caricatures you sometimes get at theme parks. I visited Nate's site and saw this great pic he did of my caricature pal, Alison Gelbman. Alison's normally cute as a button, but Once Nate put her face through the meat grinder he reduced it to this horrific mish mash you see here. For all it's goryness, it's "totally her!" The man's a genius. All I gotta say is, if you want a "nice" caricature, sit in someone ELSE'S Chair!

Same face, different style...

Believe it or not, even though we're all individuals with distinct personalities, habits, and mannerisms, people STILL think that "all caricature artists draw the same". Frequently when Im doing retail caricature and I ask people if they'd like to be drawn, they sometimes say, "oh I GOT ONE OF THOSE already" as if its the same thing as buying an orange of something......
The truth is that any given artist draws the same face in a variety of ways basedon a variety of different factors including tools used, the artists mood, personal feelings towards the subject, or at the risk of sounding "spacey" the "energy" a given subject is projecting. Take This example for instance. Same face, two different treatments. The one of the left is "cartoony" simplified, something that you might see in an animated drawing, while the other is semi realistic.This guy's face had something undefinable in it that prompted me to draw hism in two ways and BOTH interpretations are equally valid. In doing two seperate caricatues like this, I usually draw the more "realistic" version first, then, taking the essential characterstics from the caricature, I use them to make a more simplified drawing. Its great fun, and easy to do.
Viva La Difference! It's what makes caricature MORE fun than simply "drawing a portrait. Booooooooooorinnnnnnng!!!!

Ridiculously Good Looking.....

Not EVERYONE is self concious about being drawn on the train, in fact some people think SO much of themselves, they actually show you what they consider to be their best side when they think you're drawing them, just like this guy here, who judging from his facial expression just KNEW that he was ridiculously good looking, Big NOSE and ALL!!! Self Esteem is EVERYTHING people!!

Bombastic Bigg Babe on the Brooklyn, Bound B Train...

She saw me drawing her and tried to turn away, but TOO LATE! she was sooo ticked off and started pouting!She was positively livid. Visually, she had nice rounded forms that artists always love to draw, and also had these great big cheeks that looked like she'd drank an entire pitcher of koolaid, and was refusing to swallow.

I roughed this out on notebook newsprint paper, started to ink it, and then felt it looked better rough. I thought it was really strange that she had this backpack which must have been so loaded down with books and junk that it hung sooo low down to her backside.