Caricature

Jun 4, 2022

Exercise Five

I had previously shared my love for cartoons in Part One, having introduced you to my own cartoons that I once created based on my daily life and then for others. The more I worked on those, the more I found that essentially, I was creating caricatures in my own style. It was fun to try get a likeness in my own way, either through facial features, hair or clothing. If I couldn't get the likeness exact in the face, then it was definitely through other means that would help people find a relation in what they were looking at. It's a lot of fun to do, and quite a nice challenge when faced with it. I was pleased to see this exercise in here!

I knew immediately that I wanted to try create Jack Black in a fun caricature. I'm such a fan of him and his work that he seemed like the perfect character to build. The only catch about creating a caricature on well know people, is that quite often they have had caricatures created of them before.

In recent months, Jack Black received a 3D model of himself as Thor, which I adore! It is the perfect caricature of him, the gesture, the facial and everything of the essence is so Jack Black; it's amazing. Having seen this, I'm worried I may be somewhat influenced by the style as it is a dream! Instead, I decided to make the creator of this piece, the artist in which I will research for this task.

Gabriel Soaresz, a Brazilian artist working in both 3D and 2D, has a wonderful style that flows between both forms. Painting digitally he creates works that are similar to traditional oil painting, working with light and shadow that creates almost sculpture like paintings. The same style can be seen in the way he works 3D, using angles, flat edges and light to define the caricature characters. I wanted to focus more on the 3D works he creates based on well known people. There's an element of cuteness in the cartoon pieces yet striking sculpted shapes that really elevate the gestures, bringing the character to life in the mannerisms.

I didn't want to look too closely at his visual style as I wanted to avoid being influenced on the result as much as possible. What I wanted to look at was the gesture, the choice in poses used to bring the personality out. I wanted to also look at how he might have used silhouettes to help build a stronger character, a more recognisable character. He really nailed it in creating Jack Black as Thor, it is how he did it that I was interested in.

Jack Black as Thor 3D Model - Gabriel Soaresz, image from Instagram

There is a very clear silhouette in this render, with no shapes really overlapping.

I wanted to create Jack Black in his more relaxed attire, what might be more recognisable from YouTube or when on stage as Tenacious D. Itching to get started, I scanned the internet for photo reference of Jack Black and put them in a mini mood board. Again, the things I was looking out for in the search was a gesture that I could work with. This felt quite important to capture an essence of Jack by not just relying on likeness.

School of Rock was on of my all time favourites, and where I found my love Jack Black. In this film, Jack Black is often seen in what I feel is a signature stance for him, which is just about visible in some of the photos above. The legs being in this power pose, as he leans in to the mic. This was roughly what I wanted to achieve in my caricature. Which I began sketching on a A3 paper.

I hadn't quite nailed it in these sketches, but there was elements that I liked. I decided to move to a larger sketch to see this would help.

There was parts that I liked, for example the face and the hands, but the rest wasn't right. I hadn't got the gesture correct and as a result had a bit of an awkward pose that wasn't very powerful. I tried to outline it and see if I could fix any odd parts in the process. To be honest, I wasn't happy with the legs!

It was still off. The legs weren't correct, the arm holding mix wasn't my favourite, and perhaps the guitar wasn't helping. So I tried again, which worked out much better!

Fixing the back leg, I think, made a big difference in the balance of weight. It also made the silhouette stronger with a clear shape.

To complete the process, I transformed the sketch into a digital drawing, completing the cartoon look of the caricature and adding any other details I thought would finish it.