Exhibition Digital Caricatures

I was working for three days last week at the NEC in Birmingham drawing digital caricatures and so I thought I'd show some of the caricatures here. The first image is a photo of the stand itself which shows the 52" plasma screen that I link my computer up to which attracts the visitors onto the stand!



Just to explain what I do when drawing digital caricatures - I have pre-drawn bodies onto which I put the newly drawn caricature (after the 'victim' has told me what body they want!) and I print it off for them. I also save the file as the client's email address and then hand these over the the company I'm working for at the end of the day for them to email the images to the visitors.......get it?....I hope the visitors do....!!! Anyway here are some of the visitors with their caricatures:




As you can see James Bond is VERY poular with the gents!

In the eye of the beholder

Now, here is a little conundrum I found myself in recently. I was commissioned to produce a very last minute caricature for a CEO who was due to retire in a few days time. The client sent me three photographs but pointed out that they were taken abour 5 years ago but that "he hasn't changed much - maybe a bit thinner in the face and his hair is lighter". I had time to get an intial image/rough over to them for approval and they thought I'd 'pushed' the caricature too far i.e. it didn't really look like him. So, I had another go and came up with the caricature below which I posted to them.



I received an email a few days later saying that "Unfortunately it really doesn’t look at all like Richard (the photos are 5 years old but he hasn’t changed much)" and asking if I could have another go... I asked for more recent photos and got the reply that the ones I had were the only ones available. In a situation like this what is the point spending more time drawing another caricature from the same photos if you can't see what's wrong with the one you've just produced? I asked for the artwork back and retreated backwards out of the situation!

Many thanks to all those colleagues whose advice I sought as to where they thought I might have gone wrong and was inundated with similar stories from clients who reported a 'lack of likeness' - so it's not just me! I DID wonder if it was a similar case to that reported by the great Tim Leatherbarrow who went through the same process only to be told a few days later the client had "unfortunately sent the wrong photographs" i.e. they ones they'd sent were of a different person!!!

Count Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy

Since I've been working my way through War and Peace I thought I'd have a go at caricaturing the great man himself. He seems to have been a total thorn in the side of the Russian State over his lifetime and stirred up much unrest that probably laid the foundations for the Russian revolution. Tolstoy had 13 children, was a pacifist and was excommunicated by the Russian holy synod. What a guy eh.......?
Judging by his looks though you can tell that Leo wouldn't have been a natural as a stand up comedian.

Soren Malling, The Killing

Saturday night (well, Sunday morning actually as I'm usually working on Saturday night!) will not be the same now that the series, The Killing, has come to a breathless end. Can't wait for the new series (which apparently is only 10 episodes this time) to start. What happens the 'old' characters in this first series? - we'll probably never know but we do know that DI Sarah Lund's sidecick, played by Soren Malling didn't make it (he was shot and then died in what we call 'suspicious' circumstances.....)
Anyway here's a caricature of said Malling....

Employee caricatures

Howard Jacobson

I thought I'd have a go at capturing the author (and let's not forget a Man Booker Prize winner) who also happens to have a very interesting face! It's a lot easier caricaturing such faces of course.....

Just William

Some people are born to be caricatured and William Hague is one of them! He's not been doing so well recently and I'm sure that he's not high on the SAS birthday card list! Time will tell to see how he copes with the Libya crisis....

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