This is my friend, Nate Kapnicky. Who does some of the coolest craziest caricatures out there! I'm a big fan. Nate's drawn a couple AWESOME caricatures of me and I owed him a decent one. The one I did at this past NCN con(see prior post) was super weak. Then I was planning on drawing him at Cripple Con 2 a couple weeks ago but my brain wasn't working and was drawing a blank for most everything I drew. So I finally got around to it now. I have some issues with it...little stuff that bugs me and areas where I could have pushed it more but overall I think it's a good starting point going in the right direction. I was going to scrap it and not post it but I figured it's decent enough. I plan on doing one that's crazier than this...I was going to jump in and start on it, but I figure it's best to step back, learn and figure some more stuff out and come back to it with fresh eyes and tricks. anyhoo, hope ya like this one for now, Nate! oh and I ruined the original piece by experimenting with some marker stuff on it that didn't work out. luckily I took a picture of it before (the one posted above). Nate's a Steelers fan too. I'm an Eagles fan, boo hoo :( would have been cool if both PA teams were in the Superbowl. but oh well, hope at least 1 PA team wins.
This is Ken. A real cool dude that works at Busch Gardens, Tampa and loves getting drawn. For some reason I had a lot of trouble with his face. I attempted to draw him a bunch of times while I was in Tampa last month, but nothing was coming out right. I wanted to try and do something different and maybe I was trying too hard. this one took me a long time to figure out as well. I have issues with it as well and I think some of my sketch studies were better/with better likeness...but overall, it's prolly the most decent one I can do now. I like that long swoopy curve, on a whim I just threw it down and wanted to see how I could improvise on that. That's the kinda stuff I want to do more of. I'll prolly have to come back to it later with fresh eyes and do another one of Ken. Ken likes background elements, so I thought I'd do something a bit more intricate, I thought it came out kinda neat.--------------------------------
I've been working some more stuff out these past few days and it's gotten me even more excited about where I want to take my caricatures. yes, yes, I know it seems impossible for me to get any more excited about caricatures, heh. It might not necessarily be all "new ideas" as some of what I plan on focusing on I've done in the past, but it's about having a clearer direction/ game plan on where I want to go which has always been my problem. I always have SO many different things that I like in a caricature (and art in general)--from making it funny to exaggerated to crazy to simple to complicated to retaining likeness etc. a lot of it conflicts with each other and it's tough to figure out which takes priority or to what extent. also it's a lot to try and remember all those different thing while drawing. I'm trying to figure it all out and focus so that eventually it becomes more instinct instead of a process and then you can free up space to be more creative, fun and create new and unique solutions. I feel like in the past few days, things are all coming together and I'm excited about the new focus. at the same time it's going to be a LOT more challenging and forcing myself to take more risks. most likely there's going to be lots more failures, but that's what it's all about. It's a fine line, but having confidence in your drawing is good but at the same time if you are too confident and know you can rely on the same tricks and techniques that have worked in the past than you are not growing and will be stale and plateau. You will become bored, your viewers will become bored and that's something I constantly try to avoid...not sure if I'm always successful but that's always been my mindset. when you have that fear of not knowing, of not knowing how it's going to end up, it's excited and challenging and THAT's when you rely on all the hours of hard work and practice that should hopefully start to become instinct and you make it work somehow. in those instances are usually where you come up with an unexpected unique and awesome solution that can be THE most rewarding.
anyhoo, that's enough outta me for now. I'm working on a bunch more caricatures, so should have some more posts soon...or if not, it's cause I'm too busy throwing away all the gigantic failures, heh.
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13 comments:
HOLLY SH!!!, Thats crazy awesome!!!!, Thats about as Jacked as it gets. Thanks alot man. I would really like to have that. I really feel my likeness in that in the most twisted way. geeminnyyyyy
I like the other drawing of that guy too. Your coloring in both of these is really sweet.
thanks, nate! glad you like it. yeah, I thought your likeness was pretty decent still. but I still feel I can jack it up more and still get a better likeness. def going to do another one.
and sorry to say, but I accidentally messed up the original by trying out some marker shadows, so it looks crappy. but don't worry, I'll do another and crazier one...and if you don't like that, I can always just redraw it.
Nice designs, Chris! I like how you put Nate's mouth all over the place, although I can't see likeness too much.
Also, I really like the other one, and I think you got his likeness in your cool design-y way. But, I'm curious. You said that you threw that one huge curved line down, and then tried to work around it to make his face. And you said you want to do that more often.
I don't think that throwing random lines down make the kind of art you do. Did you mean that you want to throw down more INSTINCTIVE lines that will stretch you and make dynamic art? What did you mean?
I think the one thing that you could have worked on better and that do often is incorporate your exaggeration in your shoulders and shirts
fran- it's funny about the nate one. I do think likeness isn't as strong and one of the things that bugged me but in a way....I can still sorta see him in there maybe because I was staring and working on that one for a really really long time. and that 2nd one is sorta the same thing too, in that I worked on it for so long that I thought that I missed likeness more and thought that people would think I missed more. but oddly it turns out a few people have said so far it's a decent likeness.
as for what I meant in my babble, sometimes I'm not even sure, heh. um...let's see, yeah, I guess it is a mixture of instinctive lines and randomish lines. instinctive in that sometimes you'll think "ok, this person has a wide face so I'm gonna throw down a long but sorta randomish horizontal line" not really knowing what I'm going to do with it, but not so much that it's totally random because there is some logic to the "why." then I'll improvise off of that which might make a unique solution that otherwise I wouldn't have thought of/helps you think outside the box. just mixing it up, kinda like if you always draw head shape first and then instead starting with the nose or something else 1st. then again, sometimes I WILL make a random decision purely on design aesthetics vs. anything that refers back to the subject, which I guess has some reasoning, yet not. I really like the idea of improvising and yet it is obviously riskier and scarier, especially when doing it in a live setting. Some of my personal fav sketches are ones where I just put down a bold line and see if I can make it work. they might not be the best likeness and may have a lot of other things that aren't up to par, but that special uniqueness to the sketch can make it stand out for me and I feel good about giving the customer something unique. I feel a lot of times, I am trying to save a sketch after taking a bunch of risks and when I do, it's kinda exciting--happy accidents and thrilling in that I managed to save it, heh. I love the idea of art seemingly being random but is actually carefully planned and thought out...or at least gives the impression that it is carefully planned out when in fact, sometimes it is and sometimes it's a mixture of both...I'm all for controlled chaos, heh. wow, I'm overly wordy! hope some of that made more sense?
nate- funny thing is, when I drew that steelers logo on your shirt, I was like "man, that's boring, I should have exaggerated it" but yeah, I totally should try exaggerating the body and clothing more, thanks for calling me out on it!
That definitely made more sense, Chris!:) And I think it's really cool that you're pushing yourself with those kind of premeditated random lines. Unfortunately, now that I'm not doing live caricatures, I can't mess around like that and don't have to worry about people accepting it or not.
I knew you didn't really throw down lines without any purpose!
Oh, and by the way, I came back and looked at your Nate drawing and studied it a bit more, and when I squinted my eyes, I could see him! I think it looks more like him if I see it in blur, and I was looking too closely at each individual line instead of the whole thing. The eyebrows and the teeth did it.
dude all of these are awesome!!
i really really like these man, and someday you gotta do a crazy one of me! hah, and i gotta draw you too.
oh yeah and singleton, randy, and ramon all really like the ones you did of them, i just thought you should know... oh and i just added your blog to my links
very very good!
fran- cool, glad I made some sense. I still think the nate could be better likeness. hope things get busier in the summer and you get to draw more live caricatures.
kev- yeah man, I'll draw ya sometime! and draw me too! you've got some killer work!
pavel- thank you!
Man your stuff is F**K@d UP!! but amazing.
Man your stuff is F**K@d UP!! but amazing.
Man your stuff is F**K@d UP!! but amazing.
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