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Dufus News.
Your place for political humor,
weird news, satire, cartoons,
political caricatures and
the infamous Mondo Bob
signature series T-Shirts.

LMAO Cartoon Feature

LMAO Cartoons
is a
FREE cartoon feature for your website
that will change monthly.
Click on link to find out how to get it.

Our celebrity caricature of the month is
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
"Are you now or have you ever been a member
of a radical conservative conspiracy?"

How To Draw

Being a caricature artist just isn't pretty!

How To Draw Caricatures

There have been many requests from people wanting to learn how to draw caricatures. I have a great bias against most "how to" books and have resisted creating another "It's So Easy Anyone Can Do It" book that is designed primarily to make a few fast bucks for the author and publisher rather than provide sincere help to wouldbe artists.

The truth is, learning to do anything with some degree of skill requires many long hours of practice; you know, hard work. I've spent the better part of the last fifteen years trying to reach a level of expertise at drawing and painting to be able to get away with referring to myself as an "artist" and many frustrating years before that dabbling at art as a hobby.

As far as caricature drawing is concerned, here is the big secret to how I learned the technique well enough for people to want to pay for my work: I got some random pictures of people I didn't know off of the internet and began trying to draw caricatures of them. That's it. The answer for my wanting to learn to draw caricatures was to DRAW caricatures.

I know that probably isn't what you want to hear, that you prefer to see a glitzy ad for another "Be A Professional Artist In Ten Easy Lessons" book, but there it is, anyway.

I really think the main thing one needs more than another instruction book is a true passion for drawing caricatures. If you don't have a burning obsession for art, you can never sustain yourself through the endless hours of practice required to get close to where you dream of being. Forget about "talent"; I'll pick determination over talent any day.

To that end, I will be posting periodic "tips for the caricature artist"; techniques and tricks I have learned that may help. And, if you wish to contact me and ask a caricature drawing related question, I am more than happy to try to provide some useful advice to help guide you on your way. Just don't look for any books from Silly Bill.

How To Draw Caricatures is a feature offered by Silly Bill to provide as much help as possible to striving artists without actually having to inflict another boring "how to" book on an unsuspecting public.

I will post artist tips periodically and am available for questions if you are so desperate in your artistic quest that you really believe it will help.

Bill Trantham

Ask Silly Bill
Artists wishing to ask Silly Bill about how to draw caricatures can use this link.

For some time I have been meaning to post a series of actual drawings depicting the process of creating a caricature drawing from scratch. This is the photo I will work from; a very nice lady who needs a caricature image for business cards. This needs to be cute but not silly; she needs to appear attractive yet, at the same time, like someone to be taken seriously. It is to be a straight forward head/shoulder caricature drawing with little departure from reality. I will use 8.5x11 carstock to best facilitate scanning of finished work later.

I begin with a rough pencil sketch, drawn lightly in case I need to erase and correct. At this stage, I am looking for a good likeness and to balance the image, lettering and background. There needs to be space for all elements with equal distribution of weight. I often adjust the background halo to help balance the entire drawing. This is the sketch proof stage that is sent to client for review and approval. Please note that the body is drawn a bit smaller than original to give the work a caricature effect.

In this stage, I use an ultra fine black nib-tip marker to outline all but soft facial features. Pencil lines are erased using Gumbracher pliable eraser. Soft face lines are outlined with brown pencil. I have applied the base flesh tone using Prisma Pache (med). I have also obtained sketch proof approval from client.

I decided to go with green in the background like the photo. Note that I vary the tone from dark to light to make it more interesting and appealing. I began the hair with light brown and highlighted overall with dark yellow. I have started to shade the facial contours using dark sienna pencil. The blouse is a single layer of pink; same color used to denote creases and shading. Care should be taken to maintain likeness when shading the face...pay close attention to shading in the photo.

To finish the drawing, I added color and shadowing to the lettering. I refined the facial shading using pink and light sienna. A black pencil was used to outline perimeters, darken the eyes and nose openings. I then used light brown to "tweek" some of the shaded areas and to tie the background together.

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