September 23, 2000

Hi all! 

Hope you're having a stupendous weekend, I've even stolen a little time to 
watch the Olympics - (which makes me think I should have been looking ahead two weeks ago, I could have drawn SOMEBODY more in the news :-)

Any way, I've finished up the Anthony Robbins caricature. I continued the 
trend I went into detail describing 2 weeks ago, namely:

Hair and forehead: continued squeezing the forehead, keeping the hair a 
little more snug on the head, 

Eyes lost a little detail from the original, which takes a tad away from 
their realness, but adds a little more cartoon feel. (Sometimes desirable, 
sometimes not). I also tried to make the eyes eyelids droopier. Two things 
happened when I did this. 1) he looked angry (because I gave the line above 
the lower margin of the upper lid too sharp a curve to it - erased in this 
picture, and 2) second he looked stoned. So I undid that too and referred to 
the original picture to see how the curves really work around the eyes 
(how the edges work). 

Nose - lengthened, widened around the nostrils - made a special attempt to 
maintain the hard triangular shape to the actual nostrils shadows. 

Mouth and teeth - just keep on getting bigger, which adds to a larger jaw 
and chin. Tried to heighten the contrast between gums and lip shadows so the 
gums became more prominent.

Also observe the lines around the corners of the mouth, (the dimples) - I 
felt these were real important for capturing a likeness. 

Lips were difficult, but using the "negative space" approach, I concentrated 
on the shape of the darkest shadow between the bottom of the teeth and the 
upper margin of the lower lip, and the shadow beneath the lower lip to help 
make clear the shape of the lip (kind of the "default" approach.) But it 
works so well! 

That's a general drawing tip: when you're up against a complicated body 
shape, (or any complicated shape for that matter), look at the shapes AROUND it. Seeing the unique shape around the complicated shape takes a lot of the burden off drawing the complicated shape. 

Ears seemed to shrink even more. I did do a quick sketch with Mr. Robbins 
having elephantine ears and I got a good laugh out of it. But, it didn't 
seem to be him - it was too easy, almost cheap. Maybe I'm just being too 
kind. :-)


To see an original photo of Mr Robbins see: 

http://w3.nai.net/~mpomerle/Auto/Celebrities/Anthony_Robbins.htm


That's all for this week. If you've just subscribed, all previous e-zines 
and caricatures are stored in the Archives at the Insider's Artist Loft. 
(Though I'm a little behind at updating, updating is scheduled for 2 weeks 
from now.)

http://ycdinsiders.digitalchainsaw.com/InsidersArtistLoft/archives.htm

Keep on drawing, and keep sending your questions and drawings!


Warmly, 


Jeff K