Sunday Mailbag- Workshop Class Illustration?

Q: You make group drawings with all participants of each workshop. Are these images completely drawn on a sheet or are the montages? How do you work on group portraits that show the best possible recognition at the end?

A: I don’t consider these workshop illustrations to be group or crowd scenes in the classic sense, because they are not really a “scene” at all. The vertical nature of the image makes it impossible to do a real group shot where all those depicted could be really together in such an arrangement. Those in the front would have to be seated or kneeling, those in the center bent over and those in the back standing. Either that or they’d need to be on a series of risers. In other words, it’s not a natural grouping of people in a single scene. These are sort of a cross between a group scene and a montage, with liberties taken on the figures and layering.

If you are asking about real group/crowd scenes, I did a tutorial on that a decade ago.

As for these workshop illustrations, I start by doing the rough pencils and composition digitally in PhotoShop. First I draw individual caricatures of each person on their own layer. I don’t pay any attention to the size, because I am going to resize them all at the end.

I ask each workshop participant to send me several photos with a straight on angle, 3/4 left and right, and a profile. Sadly they don’t all follow directions, but I usually have several with multiple angles and I do try and alternate angles among the group. I’ll do several 3/4 left and 3/4 right, and the rest straight on.

Once I get all the individual caricatures done, I resize them and move them around to get a good composition. This can take some time because I want the faces to be as big as I can get them but not overlapping too much. Those drawn 3/4 facing left work best on the left, those facing right on the right, but it’s important to mix things up so you don’t have a uniformity of angles going on. Nothing kills the natural feel of a group of people that too uniform a spacing or too many heads at the same angle next to one another. People naturally tilt their heads, lean a bit, etc. I experiment around to find a balanced composition.

Once I get the heads in place, I draw in the bodies that are visible. I’ll fill larger open spaces with people holding sketchpads or drawing tools. I throw a few pencils or whatever behind a few ears.

Once I get the rough done I print it out and tighten up the drawing on bristol board. Then I ink it with dip pens/brushes.

Finally I scan the line art and color it in Photoshop, and add the text graphics.

These take me probably 10-12 hours to do from start to finish, which means it adds a day on to the time I spend on a workshop. I’ve considered not doing these anymore but people seem to like them and it adds a little more value to the workshop.

Thanks to Thomas Vetter 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!