It's been a while since I've drawn the cast of a TV show. It's one of my favorite things to do, so I thought I might start a new one. I've been watching Star Trek: Deep Space 9 (a show almost as old as I am... what) and it's really good (just started season 6!). My brother's been wanting me to draw these characters for years, and now I understand why! I thought this might be a good opportunity to talk about my caricature process.
This is how I start - with a rough sketch. I find that the longer I work on a caricature, the harder it gets to capture a likeness. The moment I start to overthink it or overdo it, it doesn't work anymore. This rough sketch stage helps me really capture the essence of the character without much detail. I'm mostly concerned with getting the main features of the character down... things like head/face shape, eye, nose and mouth shape, etc with as few lines as possible. I try not to spend more than a few minutes on each face. And of course, I make sure to have reference photos of the character up on my screen to look at (though I find it easier if I focus on just one photo).
From here, the next step is to lower the opacity and go over this foundation layer with a tighter drawing. I'll fix wonky things that happen in the rough stage like symmetry (which you can check easily by flipping the drawing horizontally... the weirdness will be super obvious, if there is any). The next step is fun because the hard part (the caricature) is already done.
UPDATE: Here is a
link to the finished drawing!
-Anna
Anna,
ReplyDeleteI love the sketch. Met Avery brooks a few times at conventions. Ive been making shirts for myself the past few weeks. Any chance I can use your sketch on one?
Thanks
Dan
I don't mind, as long as it's just for yourself and you don't plan on selling it. Glad you like it!
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