Sunday Mailbag- Struggling with a Likeness?

Q: Do you have trouble capturing the likeness of some subjects and if so how do you fix it?

A: How to capture a likeness is too big a question to answer here, but I do have some things that I do if I am struggling with a getting a good likeness for a particular subject:

•  Get more photo references– This is hands down the most helpful thing you can do if a likeness is eluding you. Trying to base a caricature on a single image means you are relying solely on the information that picture gives you. Lighting, angles, odd expressions, lens distortion and other factors can cause a photo to give you bad or incomplete information. Getting additional references so you can see other angles of the face will help you see things you could not see or missed in the original reference. Even though I might use a single photo for the basis of the caricature, pictures from other angles help me understand both the physical features and, more importantly, help me see the relationships of the face I am trying to exaggerate.
• Step back from the art and the reference– I mean this literally. Take several step back from the drawing and pics you are working on and from, or if it’s a digital sketch zoom out until it’s very small. I often find when a drawing is “off” it’s because I have missed some relationship of features or the face is lopsided/imbalanced in some way. It is easy for that to happen when you are making adjustments here and there. Suddenly one of the eyes is too close to the nose compared to the other, etc. This is much easier to notice when you can see the entire piece in smaller scale, and much easier to compare to the subject matter when they are side by side at that scaled down size. Another trick is to look at the drawing in a mirror, or reverse it digitally. I’m not a big fan of that method anymore, because sometimes the asymmetry of a subject is strong enough to be part of their look, and balancing it back out can suck the life out of your drawing.
• Go Away- I also mean this literally. Put the drawing away and go do something else for an hour or a day. You don’t always have this luxury if you are up against a deadline, but getting away from the work allows your brain to reset and you come back to it with “fresh eyes” later. Very often your first look at the work after being away will result in an immediate noticing of where you went wrong.

Thanks to Michael O’Halloran for the question. If you have a question you want answered for the mailbag about cartooning, illustration, MAD Magazine, caricature or similar, e-mail me and I’ll try and answer it here!