Tuesday, May 12, 2009

caricatures- Kutztown Univeristy gig + Shani! (APRIL 2009)

Here's some quick ones at a recent gig at Kutztown University in PA. I also drew with my friend John O'Connell--

1. I should have indicated his hair darker. actually, I should have done that for a bunch of them below...maybe in the future I should do some grays tones too.

2.

3.

4. I like that continuous line of her hair to around her face and his hair around his face.

5. eh.

6. I like this one except for the unecessessasesssaarry lines in her hoodie.

7. connect line of chin to other forehead. this one is happy...

8. ...this one they look sad, heh. but they were happy once they saw the sketch. hooray!

9. the guy on the left gave me a high five afterwards, heh.

10.

11.

12. I thought this one looked more like her, but looking at it with that picture I took, not so much...she is smiling in the pic though so that never helps when I drew her more neutral.

13. so this girl sits down, and I ask, "so, have you ever gotten a caricature done before?" and she goes, "yes, by Joe Bluhm" I was like-- wait, what?! because the fact that you know who Joe is is pretty impressive, unless you are a caricature artist than pretty much everyone knows Joe's work. and turns out she's a fellow caricature artist from the same company I work for, Kaman's Art Shoppes, at Hershey Park. also my buddy and co-worker, Alex Clare, worked with her for a month when he visited Hershey last year as well. so not only did Joe draw her, but Alex drew her and they both have seriously phenomenal sketches. so yeah, there's pressure, heh. anyhoo, I wanted to do a good one for her and it didn't end up as well as I hoped, I think I was caught off guard and was in "draw quick mode." plus, I never do just a black and white one for ones I want to do a good one for so it threw me off. anyhoo, hopefully I can do a good one for Shani sometime. that neck I drew is horrible, ugh...

14.

15. last one of the gig, they had fun contrasting faces.

In general, I'm not a fan of doing just black and white caricatures, as I like to leave my lines open and do a lot more with color so I think it looks more obvious weird if I don't color it. So to make up for it, I change up my style and tend to add more lines/rendering than I normally would (which even still isn't much). I was actually relatively happy with the overall sketches and everyone seemed to enjoy what I was doing and having a good time so that's always good. I enjoy drawing the college crowd.

3 comments:

Kari said...

Interesting to see how you do your black and white stuff. I almost think the color undermines your brilliant line quality.

Secondly, your caricatures are always so ballsy! How often do you get rejects? I drew at Geauga Lake and old Sea World for 5 years and got more rejects when I got braver with the exaggerations.

You remind of an even more cracked out, geometric-inspired Jeff Russell (drew with him at Sea World). Love it, man.

chris chUa! said...

thanks for the nice words, kari! yeah, sometimes I feel the coloring takes away from the linework...and then sometimes I only feel that only with color does it feel complete. still trying to find a way to color my stuff so it fits more with my linework.

I rarely get rejects. I usually can read whether the guest will like it if I go crazier. sometimes I'll just ask them up front. I prolly have gotten more rejects from ones where I go tamer, which usually loses likeness and looks like a weird portraity cartoon.

I've heard of Jeff Russell, I think he's good friends with my friend, Brad Bailey, who also draws very geometrically.

hey did you work with Brian Oakes or Jeremy Stock at Geuaga lake? I knew they worked there a few years ago.

justfrancesca said...

Yeah, I love doing college age too--they seem to "get" caricatures.

I know I've said it before, but your b/w are so fun! Your lines have a lot of life in them especially when you do curly hair and stuff.