This series of “How to Draw Caricatures” tutorials are a just a small taste of a larger and much more in-depth book I wrote called The Mad Art of Caricature! The book is 175 full-color pages, lavishly illustrated and contains greatly expanded explanations of the concepts presented in these tutorials, as well and a great deal of additional material on caricaturing other facial features, posture, hands, expression and more, techniques on drawing from live models, doing caricature for freeplace illustration and for MAD Magazine. This is a must have book for anyone interested in caricature, cartooning or humorous illustration. You can order it online here.

Part Four: Drawing Eyes

I’ve written in past tutorials on drawing caricatures that you can’t really teach someone to draw caricatures… that is more about developing their “sight” and observation skills and also developing an ability to find that which make an individual face unique and exaggerating it. Since every face is different this is an exercise in personal observation and decision. Therefore after I have gone over the information in my pervious tutorials, I switch gears an concentrate on teaching rookie live caricaturists how to draw the individual features, both how to see them, exaggerate them and how to draw them in line to best effect.

Here is where style becomes an issue. What I have written about previously can apply to almost any style of caricature, from the richly painted to the most minimalist of line. In these next series of tutorials some aspects of what I talk about will relate specifically with a style of caricature like my own… based on cartoon line either inked or in some other medium. Therefore those with different sensibilities and styles can take from it what they will and apply what makes sense to them, and ignore the rest. I will try to center my discussion on that which applies to a broader range of styles than just my own.

My method for teaching the individual features begins with a lesson on real anatomy. I’m not a big believer in memorizing every anatomical name but I do believe you must have a good working knowledge of how a feature is put together in order to have a good command over the drawing of said feature. Following the anatomy lesson, I talk about different techniques to help “see” the shape of the feature and understand how to draw it, including realistic proportion. Finally I talk about interpreting the feature in terms of exaggeration and incorporating it into the whole.

Points of Reference

Seeing and drawing anything is all about shapes and the correct drawing of them or in the case of caricature the correct drawing of the exaggeration of them. Either way you still have to “see” the object you are drawing and understand it’s form first. We have all seen depictions of artists on TV raising their arm outstretched towards their models with the thumb out from the fist and squinting their eyes before drawing. That is supposed to represent an old artist’s trick of using their thumb, or hand, or pencil or some other object to measure their subject’s features relative to one another, or to see angles or other relationships. The thumb is supposed to be a “point of reference”… a constant that is used to make accurate observations of the subject. Establishing points of reference in the face is key to helping to “see” shapes and make observations. With each feature and the face overall I will suggest several things I use as constant points of reference, which I can then use as a starting point from which other observations are based. Any kind of drawing can benefit from this simple concept.

Our first feature is the eyes. I’ve always felt that the eyes of a caricature are the center of everything, literally the center of the face but figuratively the center of expression, personality and “life” as it were. Therefore I’ve always place special emphasis on the eyes and begin and end with them, after the head shape, as the focus of almost any caricature. (more…)

Q: I read your recent posts about Will Elder and Bill Gaines, and how you never got to meet them. What MAD legends have you met, and who do you still want to meet?

A: I want to meet everybody of course, be they “legends” or just your run of the mill members of the “Usual Gang of Idiots”. Meeting the “legends” is unfortunately becoming a little more urgent a goal.

Sadly a few of the early artists and writers from MAD have passed away. That’s not surprising… MAD‘s 500th issue will be on newsstands in February of next year, which also marks MAD‘s 57th year of publication. That invariably means the early contributors are getting pretty long in the tooth. Many others are in full or semi retirement. I never got a chance to meet Elder or Gaines, nor did I meet Harvey Kurtzman, Wally Wood, Don Martin, George Woodbridge, Antonio Prohias, Norman Mingo, Kelly Freas, Jack Rickard or Dave Berg, all of whom are no longer with us.

Among the artists for MAD have met, in no particular order, are Al Jaffee, Jack Davis, Mort Drucker, Angelo Torres, Sam Viviano, Sergio Aragones, Rick Tulka, John Caldwell, Ray Alma, Peter Kuper, Paul Coker Jr., Kevin Pope, Don “Duck” Edwing, Bob Clark, Amanda Conner, Scott Bricher, C.F. Payne, Paul Peter Porges, Roberto Parada, Tom Bunk, Monte Wolverton, R.J. Matson, Grey Blackwell, Bob Staake, Ed Steckley, Tom Hatchman, John Koveleski, Garth Gerhart, and Timothy Shamey.

So who would I like to meet? As I said, I’d love to meet anyone who has contributed to MAD. Unfortunately MAD stopped hosting their annual holiday party a few years ago, so the opportunities to meet fellow contributors are few and far between. There are a few that I would really love to finally meet, however. Those include incredible Venezuelan illustrator Hermann Mejia, cover artist Mark Fredrickson (as a former airbrush artist I’m a longtime fan of his since way before his MAD cover days), former contributor Harry North and although he was not an artist for MAD per se longtime editor Al Feldstien. I’d also love to meet writer Arnie Kogen, having already met Frank Jacobs and Dick Debartolo, as well as former writers like Lou Silverstone and many other writers and former staffers. I’m sure I’m leaving out some names.

Every once and a while I run into one of the Usual Gang of Idiots at some function or other. I’m not much of a comic book convention attendee, having no self published books to hawk or other wares to peddle other than maybe original artwork or some sketches. Most of the time it’s at the Reuben’s or some other NCS event that I get the chance to visit with a fellow Idiot. Always a pleasure, though.

Thanks to Grant Jonen 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.

Just a short post today as we are travellng back home after our short but fun trip to NYC. Yesterday we spent in Manhattan, visiting the MAD offices, the Frick Museum, walking about the city and having a nice dinner.

Stopping by the MAD offices is almost a must of course. When you work and communicate all the time with people but never see them there is a certain disjointed feeling, so whenever I come to NYC I always pop my head into the office to say hello.

The lobby at the MAD Offices

Two usual idiots

Prints of some of the famous works of art MAD has mocked

Original Norman Mingo painting… the only one he did in oils for MAD

Another original Mingo from a famous back cover ad parody

Me and Dick DeBartolo aka “MAD’s Maddest Writer”

We finally visited the Frick Museum (actually called the “Frick Collection”), something The Lovely Anna has been wanting to do for a long time. It’s a relatively small collection of mainly French and Dutch renaissance and masters paintings, with some sculpture and 18th century furniture thrown in. I would highly recommend it for many reasons. First, even if you get bored at museums this one is very small and easy to walk through. I took my time and saw all of it in about 3 hours. That’s about the limit of my attention span for that knd of thing. Second, the work is awesome in it, and as it’s all tradtitional masters work by the likes of Rembrandt, Vermeer, Van Dyke, Whistler and many others, there is no painting there that makes you wonder why anyone would think it was a good piece of art… these are no brainers in that department. Finally the “museum” is actually H.C. Frick‘s home (he was a steel magnate who was a rabid art collector) and the art is arranges with the sculptures and furniture in intimate, natural rooms very unlike the stuffy, roped off sterility of a huge museum.

Entrance to the Frick

Highly illegal picture of the interior garden of the Frick

The Lovely Anna and I are currently in The Big Apple visiting our good friends Ed and Heather Steckley and in general just hanging out and relaxing… at least I will be as soon as I recover from the three all nighters I pulled to finish the “Super Capers” movie job. I spent Wednesday afternoon and night working in Ed’s studio on the final images for the final scene. Deadlines conquered…. AGAIN. Now its time to party!

Despite my being a little bleary eyed we managed to spend yesterday afternoon traveling to Long Island to attend the annual NCS “Bunny Bash”, which is always a lot of fun. The “Bunny Bash” is an outdoor party hosted by “The Lockhorns” co-creator Bunny Hoest (widow of original “Lockhorns” cartoonist Bill Hoest) and is open to all members of the National Cartoonists Society. It’s held on the grounds of the Hoest’s beautiful home, really more of a mansion, right on the banks of Long Island Sound. Great food, great company. Here are some pictures:

MAD Men Ray Alma, Myself and Sam Viviano

Ed Steckley, Sam and Heather Steckley

Sam again with Bunny Hoest

Anna and Me with Bunny

Today we spend in Manhattan…. mmmmm, there’s nothing like the smell of New York City in 90 plus degree heat of a summer’s day.

Hard to believe it’s been two years already since the first post on The MAD Blog. Thanks to leap year and a (very) few multiple post days, this is post #791. Just when trying to come up with something new to write about or when writing a post begins to seem like a chore, I get another e-mail from someone telling me how much they love the blog and how much they get out of it, and they thank me for doing it.

As I’ve said before, it’s a kind of therapy for me to put down the drawing pen and write for a little while each day, so I get something from it as well. Thanks to all my regular readers, and welcome to the new ones.

For some highlights from the past two years, check out the links to my tutorials and some of the posts people find to be of continued interest.

Still trying to nail this deadline so this week’s sketch will have to be a “blast from the past” from an old sketchbook. This was a quick study of director Steven Spielberg that I eventually redrew and painted up as a theme park sample circa 2002 (see park sample below). I was making fun of his cashing in on the anniversary of E.T.

Every once and awhile a freelancer finds themselves working on a project that is a long way out of their usual type of work. This year that project for me has been working on “Super Capers“, a super-hero comedy by writer/director Ray Griggs. The great thing about working “outside the box” is that it is challenging and fresh. This job has certainly been that.

What would a cartoonist have to do with a motion picture production? Good question. That’s exactly what I wondered. Ray had his own ideas, and he wanted some comic book/MAD Magazine cartoon imagery to go along with his live action film. So he hired me to create images that would be incorporated into the opening credits of the film, complete with some gags we collaborated on, as well as doing several images for a “flashback” scene early in the movie. There is even a full sized comic book possibly in the works as part of the film’s marketing. I’d write more but the images for said flashback scene are due tomorrow and I’m hard up against it to get them done. Ray’s “released” many of the images, so here’s a couple of the ones I did for the credits:

Ray just revised the Super Capers website with a flash interactive “Comic Book” that uses a few of the images I did for the credits, so you can check that out. There are a number of “pages” in the comic, so keep clicking the corners to see it all. They also have a two part “Behind the Scenes” film (see links below) that gives some insight into the film and what it’s all about, and also shows a few of the images I did as well. It’s got a great cast, a funny script and looks to be a good movie! I’m glad to be a part of it. I’ll share more info as we get closer to the movie’s release.

I’m extremely busy with a tough deadline for Wednesday morning, but hope to keep the “Dreaded Deadline Demon” at bay on The MAD Blog if possible. Here’s a quick piece I wrapped up last week for the client I do the workplace posters for… pencil, ink and final color stages. Click each image for a close up look:

Pencil roughs. The client wanted me to tone down the “anger” in the
old lady driver, and make her look more annoyed than fuming. The also
asked me to make one of the two onlooker ladies heavier.

Final inks reflecting those changes.

Final color. In the case of these cartoon images that contain mechanical
objects like cars I go for the suggestion of realism in both the drawing and
the painting rather than really painting true chrome or reflections. It keep the
“cartoony” feel consistent between the people and the objects.

I am hoping that this week some of the images I’ve done for the “Super Capers” movie will be in use on their website and I will be able to link to them. In the meantime I’m hard pressed to finish the final artwork for the scene in the film this week before The Lovely Anna and I take a little R&R trip to New York City…

Q: The pencil sketches you make before the final drawing are so detailed and clean, where are the lines of the very beginning rough roughs?  I know there’s the non-reproducing blue pencil approach but I suspect it’s something to do with the automated drawing system you use.

A: I confess I have no idea what you mean by “automated drawing system”. I hope you do not think I somehow use a computer program to do any actual drawing or manipulation of drawings. That is very far from the case. I draw everything I do traditionally with pencil on paper/bristol, and later erase the lines after inking. Only then are they scanned into the computer, where I do some touch ups (in lieu of “white out”) and then proceed to coloring.

I have often been accused (not exactly the right word) of doing very tight pencils prior to finishes. Sam Viviano at MAD often makes fun of me when I refer to something as a “loose” or “rough” pencil, commenting it’s tighter and cleaner than 95% of the pencils he gets from other MAD artists. That is something of a habit I have been trying to break myself of for some time, as the tighter your pencils the less drawing you do with your inks and ultimately the less life the inks have in them. The reason for the fear of ambiguous pencils is from my comic book days, when an inker did all the inking over my pencils. If I was not very precise and meticulous about my drawing, things would get lost in the translation… this was especially true about the caricature likenesses of the “Married… with Children” cast I was drawing. I had a great inker in David Mowry for most of the time I was with NOW, and I had the legendary Marie Severin inking my pencils for “The Coneheads” from Marvel Comics, but even so it was important to me to make sure they understood what I was trying to depict in my panels. Plus, my favorite part of any job is drawing is with the pencil drawing stage. Inking is always tedious and frustrating for me… I fight with the nibs and ink and nothing happens exactly the way I’d like. I have total control of the pencil… it’s pure creativity for me at that stage. It’s hard to resist going all out with the drawing.

So, my process is really a two stage one with pencils. First, I do my “rough, rough” very lightly and with a minimalist number of lines, roughing in basic shapes and forms, thinking composition and design, then I “knock back” that underdrawing with a kneadable eraser until it is just barely visible, then I go back and make corrections and do the tighter pencil right on top of the old drawing. Sometimes I will do that “rough, rough” at a smaller scale and then blow it up to art size, throw it on my light table and transfer it to the board while making any corrections I think it needs and doing the tighter drawing. Either way I end up with that pretty tight sketch.

Here’s a “sketch o’the week” from a few months ago where I scanned in the drawing at various stages, but really I am showing my basic process for any kind of job:

This is more of what my initial drawings look like

This is the point where I “knock back” the rough with my eraser…

You can still see some of the partially erased underdrawing that
I have gone over with darker, bolder lines… This is what a typical
“pencil rough” ends up looking like prior to inking.

I didn’t ink this one but instead rendered it further in pencil with
some crosshatching, but it basically amounts to the same.

That’s the process in a nutshell. What I really SHOULD be doing is using that second drawing as my pencil, and inking on top of it for the final. However I am too cowardly and insecure to do that. I can admit it. I’ll keep working at it…

Thanks to Jack Coleman 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.

Our usual smörgåsbord of cartoon, caricature and MAD related website, links, news articles and announcements!

I Like Both Kinds of Music: Country AND Western Dept.-

MAD artist Grey Blackwell and MAD scribe David Shayne collaborated with David’s brother Jon on this animated music video where “Merle Hazard” laments losing his girl for someone who is more “environmentally sensitive” and trys going green to lure her back.

I’m Smarter than This 5th Grader Dept.-

Smithson with the offensive drawing…

10 year old 5th grader Cullen Smithson got into a little hot water recently when his teacher, Karen Boudreau, 44, filed criminal charges against him over a drawing he did of her at school. That instantly caused a number of flashbacks for me concerning drawings I did of my teachers in school… but I was a little smarter than this kid. I didn’t draw them lying dead with a bullet hole in their head and me holding a smoking gun. I was more subtle.

Cullen’s drawing depicts Mulcahey Middle School teacher Boudreau and a girl named “Kailey” both with marks labeled “bullet wholes” (guess spelling isn’t Cullen’s strong suit) in them with him standing there (labeled “me”) next to a gun. There is also a large “HA HA” in the mix. Those goofy kids!

The story mentions a suspension but no details about it. It’s centered over the criminal charges the teacher filed and the boy’s mother’s outrage over it. Of course she immediately ran to the American Civil Liberties Union to enlist them to fight the charges. She is quoted in the story as saying: “he shouldn’t be treated like a criminal. He did not threaten. He was making a picture for himself. He wasn’t showing anyone. He didn’t go up to the teacher and give it to her. There were no threats.” I wonder if this lady reads the papers, or has ever heard of Columbine, Red Lake, Pine Middle School or about a dozen other incidents in the last 10 years where some kid takes a gun to school and starts shooting? I’d agree filing criminal charges is a bit over the top, but for all we know she demanded the kid get serious psychological counseling and his mom refused to do it, and the only recourse was getting the courts involved.

I’ll tell you what, I got sick of being dragged into the principal’s office everytime a drawing of a teacher surfaced around school. I endlessly expained to the principal that I only did the really funny ones, and I was insulted to be accused of the crappy ones.

MAD on the Move Dept.-

Someone on YouTube uploaded the first five plus minutes of the 1974 MAD television special which includes the opening sequence and the first segment “the automobile manufacturer of the year”. It looks to me like Angelo Torres did the art that was the basis for the “automobile” skit, but the animators obviously had to adjust things for the animation to work. Actually the animation itself is a lot more involved than you might think it would be.