Tom's Mad Blog
June 5th, 2020 | Posted in Daily Coronacature
Here’s my take on the late, great Marty Feldman. When I posted the subject this morning, I noted that Marty was an “easy one”. That’s not entirely true. People who have very obvious features to exaggerate are sometimes just as elusive to capture as someone without an obvious “hook” because there’s a tendency to try and exaggerate it all, when you really want to concentrate on what’s most important. It’s a little like skeet shooting. When one target takes off you know to zero in on that one and shoot it cleanly. When 20 targets take off at the same time, if you try to… READ MORE
June 4th, 2020 | Posted in General
I was remiss in not posting this yesterday, which marked the 28th anniversary of the passing of MAD founder and publisher William M. Gaines. I never met Bill. I got my first print assignment from MAD exactly 20 years ago this month. That was eight years after Bill’s passing. MAD has evolved a lot since Bill died, but back in those days the magazine was still very much the “Gaines” MAD, being run by Nick Meglin and John Ficarra, with editors Joe Raiola and Charlie Kadau… even Lenny “The Beard” Brenner was still about doing art production. Then newly minted art director Sam Viviano had… READ MORE
June 4th, 2020 | Posted in Daily Coronacature
I did this one early today… another busy day ahead. This one is based on a “workshop warmup” I did last year at one of my workshops. Xtina has had a lot of different looks over the years. She’s been heavier at times, then model thin, then old school Hollywood glamorous, then grunge rock, etc. etc. It’s hard to decide what is a definitive “presence” to capture when the subject is such a chameleon. It’s really all about look YOU think of first when you hear the subject’s name. It might be a certain role or a certain age for an actor, or an era… READ MORE
June 3rd, 2020 | Posted in Daily Coronacature
I decided to do something a little different today, and went with a “live caricature style” drawing of both Donald Sutherland and Elliot Gould from the 1970 Robert Altman film “M*A*S*H*”. My “live” style uses a 3mm 4B graphite and a blending stomp for shading. READ MORE
June 2nd, 2020 | Posted in Daily Coronacature
Here’s my caricature of today’s subject, Denzel Washington. It took me a few tries to “get” Denzel. I didn’t have any single reference pic that really gave me the expression and look I wanted to draw, so I had to study several pics. Here’s the main one I used for the basic head shape (rectangular, with a small forehead) and angle of the face: However, I wanted to capture the difference in his eye shapes, as the one on our right is more squinty with the top of the upper eyelid more obscured. He also has a bit of a “walleyed” look, with one “lazy”… READ MORE
June 1st, 2020 | Posted in Daily Coronacature
Here’s my take on our subject for today, Gal Gadot! This is another subject I did a “workshop warmup” of for one of my classes. I redrew it here with some revisions because I bucked my first instinct for her head shape, which was to give her a long, narrow face. She actually has a quite wide, squat face. The widest part of her head shape is definitely in the cheekbones. She also has small ears that are set quite far back on her head, which makes that width even more prominent in a 3/4 view like this. When you exaggerate the head shape width… READ MORE
May 31st, 2020 | Posted in Daily Coronacature
Tilda Swinton was our subject way back on day 30, but I copped out and posted an old caricature of her rather than do a new sketch. There were a handful of days around then where I had some nasty deadlines and did the same thing. I’m going back and doing new sketches of any subjects I wimped out on. So, heres a fresh Tilda. READ MORE
May 31st, 2020 | Posted in Daily Coronacature
Here’s my caricature of today’s subject, the wonderful Gene Wilder! He was always one of my favorite comedic actors, but he was a great actor, period. The eyes/nose is a main focus with Gene’s face. His eyes are very expressive, with heavy lids, thick eyelashes, and a very rounded lower lid. He has a big nose that seems broader at the “bump” where the nasal bone ends and the soft tissue of the nose takes over than at the end. He has an oval face shape, slightly wider in the jaw area, which gives him a bit of a “chipmunk cheek” look. Finally, all that… READ MORE
