THE MAKING OF AN AVATAR Creating "Captain Actuary" Part two

In My previous post I explained how I crashed and burned on an assignment because I made the mistake of putting "more of myself" into the project than was neccessary. In This Next attempt, I restudied the picture, and decided to draw it with "more estrogen" in mind than Testosterone.

STEP ONE ROUGH SKETCHING
Like in the previous example, I still sketched very rough and very fast in order to ride that wave of emotion neccesary to get the life into the drawing. THIS time, I was thinking on a more whimsical level. As a result, my line quality is less sharper, more rounded.

STEP TWO TIGHTENING UP THE ROUGH
Here is where I really start finding the forms. I concentrated a lot more on making things more proportionate, although there is still a level of exaggeration. The Abbacus has more of a prominent role, and Ali, The Allosaurus, has a more "Dino Essque" feeling about him. The facial proportions are a lot more "human" looking, the dreadful Hood on the cape thing is gone, and I've also payed a lot more attention to the "CA " Insignia on his chest. Remembering that he is a runner, with very well developed leg muscles, I wanted to emphasize that, so I put him in running shorts and shoes, showing off the bare legs. To add more comic relief i reasoned that if I was riding a dinosaur he would feel pretty rough, Hence, the addition of the pillow.

FINALLY COLOR!
It goes without saying that Coloring is the best part of the whole thing! Once satisfied, I immediately mailed it off to the client who went absolutely nuts over it!

If theres any lesson to be learned here, its that you should always please the customer first when doing freelance work. Dont be afraid to be critical of your work, take a step back and observe it, you may surprise yourself.

It goes without saying that If you want your own Cartoon Avatoar where i make you into a superhero you, or just plain cartoon you, dont hesitate to drop me a line!

cartoons4u2@aol.com

CARICATURE EXAGGERATION 101 HOW TO DRAW EXAGGERATED by Elgin subwaysurfer Bolling

Okay Folks, I'm about to give away another of my caricaturing secrets so listen up, get your notebook out and start writing....
Make no mistake about it, CARICATURE DRAWING IS HARD WORK. Unlike most forms of art where you have the TIME to assess, re interpret , and re adjust your work until it's Juuuuuuust right, Caricature drawing, especially LIVE party caricature drawing happens right in front of you, LIVE with "No net" what you see is what you get, and your LAST drawing has no bearing whatsoever on what you will be able to do next, because its a different face.
In caricature you have to have the skill of a portrait artist, a cartoonist, and a little bit of a lunatic to do it right. There IS "no real school " for this, and yet, in order to LEARN you have to have SOME sort of method, so here's one of mine.

DRAW YOURSELF FOR 30 DAYS STRAIGHT

When you first start you will probably do something that looks like a portraitm maybe a cartoon or two. But THAT will get old fast, remember, you have 30 days to do this. What you will find that you MUST do is FIND different ways to exaggerate yourself, and STILL make it look like you. Going through this process will FORCE you to think creatively, and think of NEW approaches to caricature your facial features. Even though YOU are the subject, the lessons you will learn in the next 30 days will carry over to how you caricature other people.
I guarantee it.
Just look at the video to see a few of my approaches.