Hi Arnaud. The likeness is pretty good in the final sketch. But some more practice carefully drawing the abstraction would be helpful, I think. Its big problem is the main vertical center line of the face. You drew it projecting far off the front of the face. Or perhaps you just did not draw the eyes and nose rhythms in the proper relationship to the center line. Either way, the center line should represent the front plane of the face. It should touch the entire length of the forehead, then it should touch the septum of the nose, where it meets the upper lip and then should end at the front plane of the chin. And the eyes should sit equal distance from the center line (but with perspective taken into consideration when the head is turned away, as in this drawing). Also, the final sketch does not feel very final. It seems more like a loose rough sketch. Partly because of the problems with your construction, but also because of the quick, spontaneous feeling to the line work. Maybe the quick spontaneous look is what your goal is here. I'm not sure. But if you want to do more realistic painted caricatures, the final drawing should have more attention paid to the quality of the shapes. And you will need to shade them more like a painter and less like an inker. The more you practice tonal drawing techniques, the better prepared you will be to move into color painting.

Hi Arnaud. The Abstraction sketch is pretty well done. It's clean and easy to see your construction rhythm lines. However, I think you would benefit from adding horizontal rhythm lines for the central axis of the eyes and also the line of the mouth opening. And maybe for the small circular nodes at the corners of the mouth. Because in your final drawing of John, the eyes are not aligned properly with the angle of the head. And the mouth is not centered well under the nose. Smiles can often be crooked. But if it is an accident and you didn't mean to make it crooked, you should go back and do your abstraction more carefully. Remember, the purpose of the abstraction is to help map the face and place the features in the correct positions and orientation, relative to the angle of the head. Also, his nose does not look to be at the correct angle in your drawing. It seems to be pointed down to the left too much. And his head seems to be looking slightly to the right.

Thanks, Mr. Bill!

Thanks, Zoungy!

Sorry I just now saw this post. In your original drawing it appears that all the facial features line up with each other. But the eye on the left is very close to the nose while the eye on the right is much farther from the nose. In your abstraction, it looks like you moved the eye on the left higher, so it's not aligned with the other features any more. Also, in the abstraction, you did not correct the distance of the eyes from the nose. Look at the muzzle rhythm. On the right side, the eye sits just outside of the muzzle rhythm. Which is good. But the eye on the left is placed well inside the muzzle area. So it doesn't match the placement of the other eye in relation to the center line of the face. Remember to abide by the guide lines you create with the abstraction. Don't draw the rhythm lines and then simply ignore them. Personally, I think it's the eye on the right that's drawn too far out from the nose. The eye on the left should probably stay where it is.

Agreed. Nice use of the abstraction to help place the features in perspective.

There's definitely a recognizable likeness there. But when I look closely, the features and even the forms themselves are vaguely indicated and a bit sloppy. It seems the expressiveness of the bold brushstrokes overwhelmed any attempt at indicating three dimensional forms. And that's okay. It can be a style choice to work that way. But if it were me, I would focus more on explaining the forms and planes of the face through careful application of the paint. Be more aware of your edge quality. And most of all - the actual drawing. For example, make sure the eyes are "his" eyes. And not just general symbols for eyes.

Thanks, Lasse!

I don't think I know how to answer that question. Caricature covers a wide spectrum of exaggeration levels and styles of rendering. That's not something which can be sectioned up and counted.

That's a pretty successful caricature. Good likeness and nice exaggeration. I'm sure most of us know what the actor looks like, but it's always best to post your photo reference next to your artwork so people can make more informed comments and refer to specific parts of the anatomy.

Haha. Do you? It's probably pretty rough.

You could certainly do it that way. It's probably easiest to do a tracing on thin paper or over a light box if using heavier paper. You could also just draw the final drawing on the same paper as the abstraction if you drew the rhythm lines light enough to erase.

It's easy to get tripped up thinking a lot about what the average face is. But don't put too much stress on it. It's not so much a scientific anatomical principle but rather a personal psychological construct. I think it's true, that, in general, most adult peoples' heads tend to follow the rule of thirds on the face (equal spacing from hairline to brow, brow to bottom of the nose, bottom of nose to the chin) and some other common qualities like the distance between the eyes being one eye width apart. And you can rely on a few of those big picture concepts when thinking about what to exaggerate. But what is more important than the "average head" diagram is your own personal gut feeling about what average means to you. For me, the average face is the average sum of all the faces I've ever drawn. I started as a live theme park and party artist and have drawn a hundred thousand people or more. So I have a pretty big reservoir to draw upon. The more faces you draw, the better your internal library of faces will become that you can base your exaggeration choices on.

Your abstraction lines are pretty solid. However, I don't know what your original sketch looked like before the abstraction. That's an important part of the process because it would tell me how well you used the abstraction to "fix" the original drawing. The construction of the Reilly head feels a little off. So perhaps you simply traced the rhythm lines over your original drawing, just reinforcing the inconsistent structure. The abstraction step is supposed to help you recreate the drawing in a simplistic way that allows you to find and fix minor perspective or construction misalignments. Again, I'm not sure if that was the case here, since there is no original drawing posted. Your final caricature turned out pretty good though. Good likeness. The mustache is kind of distracting though because it's floating in between his mouth and nose. I would move it closer to the mouth. Also, the mustache doesn't seem to follow the forms of the upper lip. The right side of his mouth is upturned so the mustache shape should be turned up on that side as well.

That's a great first piece doing digital paint sketching. But something to think about would be your values, first and foremost. It feels pretty low contrast right now and therefore not as three-dimensional and solid as it could be. It almost looks like a pastel drawing. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's a valid style choice. Perhaps choose a more simple subject for future exercises. Just stick to heads and shoulders for now and focus on sculpting the forms with light and shadow. And stick with black and white paintings for now and don't worry about color until you have more control of working with pure value.

Hi Renee. I've done a little bit of people and pet portraiture. It's not my main thing. But some. Of course the first thing is making sure your skills and style are in a good place so that you have consistent style samples to show clients or put on a website. Also, work out a pricing structure that you stick to based on things like size, subject matter, media and so on. Maybe keep prices low in the beginning to help build your portfolio and gain confidence. If you don't have a lot of samples done in a consistent style yet, you'll want to do some practice pieces for friends and family. Regarding style, I find it's helpful to find inspiration in the work of others and maybe even do a few studies of their work.