The definition, meaning and concept of a caricature.
In my experience of more than 30 years drawing cartoons in the most diverse places, this is the question that mothers and fathers have tried to answer more times, with relative success. – ‘A caricature highlights your flaws’ or ‘a caricature deforms you’
This is a common belief among many adults, so let's put everything in its place.
The cartoon does NOT highlight flaws, nor does it 'deform' or offend.
In the cartoon traits are exaggerated in order to make it funny.
If there is no exaggeration, there is no caricature
Making a big nose, a huge mouth, giant eyes is not everything, and if it can be offensive, especially if the person is not identified. That's not making a cartoon.
Nor do a few black lines reviewing a photograph, it is.
That's tracing a photo.
The cartoon attempts to capture and highlight the person's gesture without offending them.
The secret is that the person identifies and has a pleasant time, that he enjoys this particular vision that the cartoons give.
Custom Cartoons
Today, the custom caricatures are very popular for gift giving.
The cartoonist, by trade, knows how to do it.
When someone poses to be caricatured, he usually shows without knowing it, what things embarrass him.
The caricaturist with experience and skill grasps what he should not do.
Since it is possible to make a nice and fun drawing without the need for the model to spend an unpleasant moment.
Always remember that the cartoon is an original fact that causes smiles and not tears.
Are we all caricaturable?
The answer is yes: any trait can become a custom caricature, as long as it is captured with humor and respect.
Another common problem is that we usually have an image of ourselves or people close to us, very different from what other people have.
We usually look better, it is like listening to a recording of our voice, I think a large percentage of people do not like their voice, the one heard by others, and if you never tried it, it is an authentic experience.
Cartoons of children.
Many times parents are afraid that their children will be very exaggerated or ugly in a cartoon drawing, and it is understandable because of the ignorance that there is about it.
Cartooning a child is not the same as an adult
Children do not see with the eyes of an older, for these the drawing that we are going to make is real, it represents their world, as they are seen by others, when with pens and waxes they paint their house, their parents, the sun, the trees, we adults usually look at it from our optics and rarely consider that it is their look at what surrounds them, and they capture it as it is, their eyes see us like this.
That is why when caricaturing a small one takes into account, more than exaggeration, that the drawing is pleasant, friendly.
Celebrity cartoons
Unlike the general public, who are famous, their features are greatly exaggerated or “deformed”.
What happens is that we have seen these thousands of times in movies, television, newspapers, so we already have their image in the retina, in our memory, then we can draw very exaggerated features, or make a drawing with three or four lines and they will be identified by the public, for having seen them many times. Of course, there will always be someone who says that: – How did he do that with La Gioconda? or ‘Brad Pitt is not that ugly’.
To understand it better, you can see these examples of celebrity cartoons.
A caricature or a portrait.
People often ask: –Don’t you make normal drawings? – It's just that all the drawings are normal.
Caricature is a subjective fact, it is not real, and elements and techniques of art are used to make it.
Cartoons can be made in pencil, oil, acrylic, charcoal, watercolor, also with clay, plaster, through photography (from before Photoshop ), and I have even seen them made with stones, branches, clothing, etc.
So, a big difference with the portrait is that the caricature does not exist, it is not reality, nor an interpretation of it, on the other hand, the portraitist what he does is a copy of reality, he interprets it, but he does not exaggerate it does not change the model, as if it were a drawing of a jar, he copies what he sees.
So I'd better take a picture?
The answer may be yes or no. The difference between portraiture and photography is that the former highlights our personality or character, through lines, known as rhythm.
Rhythm is a mixture of straight and curved lines, thick and fine, which do not exist in nature and endows with that expressive force, which is a special characteristic, essential in each portrait. In nature, the straight line simply does not exist.
Cartoon styles.
As has been said there are many materials to make a caricature, the most common is that elements of art are used, and there is a difference in the way of working it, more or less elaborate, but something different are the styles.
Caricature of Synthesis.
It is one of the basic styles, where with very few lines the person is represented, sometimes only one is enough, the comic style, as if it were a vignette, is a drawing that makes a general summary of the caricatured.
Portrait caricature.
It is a very traditional and old-fashioned drawing, not too exaggerated, although if there were exaggeration, this is little, timid, or non-existent, and that is in the middle of a poorly made portrait and a poorly made caricature.
Big, gigantic heads. And very small, tiny bodies, like heads.
Some people say it's a "style" and they say "realistic caricatures" and others defend it by saying that they are caricatures ‘discreet and aesthetic’
It's just a justification to "not knowing how to draw caricatures" or simply, not knowing how to draw.
They will draw a photo or generate them by AI (Artificial Intelligence) or by some application.
This is a simple scam.
As I've said hundreds of times: Making a thick, black line over a photo is not making a caricature.
Perhaps you may be interested in the post where I explain, how these "caricatures" are made by tracing a photo: read Cheap cartoons
Caricature of absolute exaggeration.
Where it is taken to the recognizable limit to the model, and which is usually done with famous people, because we have them in our retina, and if the exaggeration is very great they will always be recognizable.
Abstract cartoon.
Where only some features changed place are used, to represent the person. The latter two are usually used with famous people, although exceptionally some customers ask for it.
All styles are valid and all, although the result seems simple to us, take their elaboration and work, is that sometimes it is more difficult, synthesize, remove the unnecessary and only stick to a few lines that only exaggerate the gesture that is seen.
If you want to see how we make our cartoons without using AI, you can read our process.
The Difficult Thing of Making Cartoons
The Difficult of Drawing caricatures especially and drawing in general is the mental process in which: we see an image, it passes through our brain where a summary is made and that is where the caricature is already "seen".
Then we will give "order" to execute our hand and it will reproduce with different elements what has been seen.
Here it will depend on the technical mastery of the available means and its execution the result.
But bear in mind that in this “image process”, many parts of the image were removed, simplified and modified.
A process that sometimes, when you do not work in the workshop and you can not abocetar, as when caricatures are made at fairs, events or in the street, you only have seconds to specify, discard unnecessary elements.
The caricatures seem, only in appearance, a very simple drawing, but they are quite the opposite.
Is drawing a gift or learning?
Divine gifts and births a la carte
People often assume, or ask, that if it is a "gift", this of drawing, or that "you are born with it"
To which I usually answer that when I was born I was given a choice if I wanted to be a neurosurgeon or a cartoonist and I chose the last thing that seemed easier to me, and fewer clients were going to die.
There are many myths of the "gift" of drawing.
Many, encouraged by "half-haired artists" to sell their "talent"
Since prehistory, those who captured his paintings of animals and scenes of hunting in caves, were seen as sorcerers or exorcists.
Drawing is a trade. Just that simple.
I will only say that whoever wants to draw that does, the necessary conditions to progress in this are:
1 – Scratch many roles, i.e. practice, exercise.
2 – Study technique, which there are many books on the subject.
3 – See many drawings, which are also learned from the work of others.
4 – But, most importantly, the basics: It is that we enjoy drawing, that here there are no magic wands, no gods that grant gifts, or anything, there is only a lot of work, invisible.
When they say: – Make him the mole, which if he does not look alike.
I think: That's where we would have started, and it saved me all the work.
This is how we make our cartoons
To make our cartoons we have our own working philosophy, our process and our own principles, which are here summarized in an image:
Looking for a cartoon of someone special?
Visit our page to order custom cartoons by photo.
©Wo Orons
English