I have been doing more caricature-like illustrations this past week. This time I have been utilizing more well-known figures and photographs of them to practice capturing a likeness. I have found capturing the likeness can be a difficult process, but great practice to improve.

A great technique that I use with these drawings is the lack of a sketch. I do not draw underneath first with a pencil or practice the figure a number of times; I go head first with the pen. This method has been extremely time efficient and I do not worry about mistakes… just go with the flow and see what happens. Below are the illustrations that I ended up with.

I will be attempting less photograph use for these, although helpful, I do not want to always rely on a perfectly posed person and “copy” it. An example of this is the illustration above. Using a photo of Steve McQueen I was able to capture his pose and bend the drawing around that. Regardless it is fun and a great way to experiment.