Blues Brothers
The Blues Brothers. Mike practically draws these guys out of habit. I’ve seen a few different version of this drawing floating around, marked by only minor changes. The contrast between short, fat Jake and tall, thin Elwood makes for a pretty fantastic caricature. It’s an iconic movie, too, and always good for a second, third, or fortieth viewing.
I’ve always regarded Jack Nicholson as an easy face to caricature. But that’s because he’s mostly been caricatured as the Joker, or as a crazy-haired man in sunglasses. This one turned out to be surprisingly difficult. I wanted to capture that very specific dull-eyed stare combined with the sinister grin. It was more trouble than just simply drawing the full-on “here’s Johnny!” face.
In warm ups for this caricature, I tried different sizes of grin, noticing that his mouth actually changed shape a lot. You think of Jack Nicholson as having one crazy smile, but packs a whole arsenal of unsettling expressions. What I went with here was a modified version of a grin that shows all the upper teeth, but only the middle few lowers. It’s bigger for emphasis.
One of Jack’s eyes is usually open just a little wider than the other. It’s not just Jack, actually, that’s common in most people. But I wanted to emphasize that for the sake of making him look crazier, so I pointed the eyes in different directions as well.
Plan A was to find a movie still from As Good As It Gets and draw Nicholson’s grumpy writer character, Melvin Udall. That movie must have been written just for Jack… he’s misogynistic, antagonistic, self-unaware, and an all-around fun bad guy overdue for redemption. But he doesn’t have facial hair in that movie, and his hair is neat and tidy and short, and, I don’t know, I wanted and older, even crazier Jack. Anger Management isn’t nearly as good of a movie, but Nicholson practically caricatures himself as Dr. Buddy Rydell, so I get to draw a caricature of Jack Nicholson playing a caricature of himself.
If you’ve never seen As Good As It Gets, check this out:
I decided making some videos would be a good idea for our business. After having that idea, I gathered some cheap camcorders/cell phones that shoot video, bought an editing program, cleaned out the garage a little bit, cleaned it out again after it got trashed for an art project, cobbled together a kind of set, plugged in every spare light we had, shot some tests, and then one night after staying up way too late and drinking beer, shot this video where I draw a caricature of Clint Eastwood.
The things I did in the above paragraph took me about four years to complete. No joke. A little fear, a lack of focus, some missing equipment, and a lack of know-how about the whole process kept things from moving forward for a long, long time.
I love The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. The way Sergio Leone handles tension is shockingly skillful. You’re never in doubt as to why a character is doing what they’re doing (Or if you are, it’s a purposeful choice on Leone’s part), and you always know exactly where they are in relation to everyone else in the scene. I’ve never seen a director so willing to put the camera right in the face of an ugly man under bright sunlight and leave it alone for thirty seconds or so. Maybe it’s because I’m a caricature artist, but I find old, wrinkled, leathery faces fascinating, and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly delivers in spades.
Just one more note for those who like The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly but haven’t seen Leone’s last spaghetti western, Once Upon a Time in the West: Go watch it right now, in the highest quality format you can. In comparison it looks a little better, sounds a little worse, runs a little longer, feels a little sexier, and has Bronson instead of Eastwood. It’s my favorite. And in terms of one-liners:
Ugly has:
Tuco: [trying to read a note] “See you soon, id… idi… ”
Blondie: [taking the note] “Idiots”.
[He hand the note back]
Blondie: It’s for you.
But West has:
Morton: Was it necessary that you kill all of them? I only told you to scare them.
Frank: People scare better when they’re dying.
and:
Frank: How can you trust a man that wears both a belt and suspenders? Man can’t even trust his own pants.
and:
Harmonica: The reward for this man is 5000 dollars, is that right?
Cheyenne: Judas was content for 4970 dollars less.
Harmonica: There were no dollars in them days.
Cheyenne: But sons of bitches… yeah.
Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Nimoy had a great face… always regal and intelligent, more so later in life. Here, Celeste takes all that quiet dignity and creates… this caricature.
Highlights for me are those veins squiggling just under the skin, the 45-degree eyebrows, and of course that mouth trying to escape from his face.
If you’ve never seen Leonard Nimoy sing The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins, then (A) What are you doing with your life, and (B) here it is:
Here’s a Sigourney Weaver by Dominique. I love how goofy-happy she is, wandering around the Nostromo, wearing her moon boots, hunting down that alien. Or being hunted. It’s hard to tell.
I never particularly noticed, but she really does have a half-closed eye some of the time.
Here’s something amazing: Sigourney Weaver is the voice of the sinister AI ark pilot in Wall-E:
“All communications are terminated.”
The Beatles
Here’s what I love:
1: The time period Mike chose to make this caricature of the Beatles. There’s a pretty big change in their appearance from the early 60’s to the late 60’s, and he picked the funniest period. These are the post-Sgt. Pepper Beatles, and they are bizarre looking.
2: The head shapes. Mike gave John, Paul, George, and Ringo each their own totally distinctive head shape. Easy enough to do when there are two subjects, but much more challenging with four. Many professional, respected caricature artists still tend to draw basic head-shape formulas without much variety, so this piece is masterful.
3: George Harrison looks like a crazy mofo. I don’t know why. But I love that everyone else looks like a pretty sweet, harmless rock star, and George looks like he’s going to steal a car and drive it through the front entryway of a pizza parlor.
scarlett johansson
Those of you who check back regularly might notice that we just posted a Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow caricature over in Dominiques gallery. What can I say? Both Celeste and Dominique decided she was a worthy subject, and both drew her the same week. It’s fun to compare… Celeste Cordova has been with us drawing caricatures for five years now, and is becoming a master of exaggerating while keeping a likeness. Her drawings are growing more complex and unforgiving. Dominique has been at it for two years, and she’s much kinder to her subjects. Caricature artists tire of their own drawings after a while, and seek new ways to keep them interesting.
Something to appreciate about Scarlett Johansson is her nontraditional beauty. The obtusely turned-up nose, the extra long upper lip and chin, and the fairly large teeth are all features that could combine badly… but on her face, they don’t.
Nick Fury
Samuel L. Jackson! Who else do you enjoy watching while they shout at somebody?
Dominque has made a fantastic caricature where the focus is really on Nick Fury’s giant, megamind-style head, and his awful, that’s-okay-we-don’t-need-a-closer-look eye scar.
By the way, anybody remember when Nick Fury was Sgt. Fury, leader of the Howling Commandos, fightin’ Nazis during world war 2? And he looked like this?
Nick Fury
Jack Nicholson
Jack Nicholson has one of those faces that caricature artists love. There are a lot of hooks… that big smile, the widow’s peak, the high arched eyebrows, the small eyes. Here we have a focus I haven’t seen before: Jack Nicholson’s teeth, looking as orderly as the teeth on a comb, but far more frightening. Sometimes teeth are hard to get right, but Jessica pulls a neat trick here, clearly defining the tops and bottoms of each tooth, but leaving the middles blank to create a unified shape. The dark outline of the mouth further pulls in focus.
In Jack Nicholson’s long career, he’s had his pick of fun, interesting roles, and he’s played them to the hilt. Terrifying as bad guys, loveable as bad guys turned good, and funny as grumpy men, he’s often the most interesting thing on the screen. Seems like Jessica loves him best as the Joker.
Black Widow
The Black Widow! Powers: none. Yet, there she is, fighting gods, monsters, and robots by doing backflips and being sexy.
I like that in this caricature by Dominique she’s just waving.