Software used : Photoshop

Date : November 30, 2009

Caricatures are a popular art form and Photosphop has made the art of making caricatures a much easier process than traditional painting. For one, it’s painless to manipulate a final look or multiple final looks. My personal favorite way to make caricatures in Photoshop is to paint the picture NORMAL first and then transform it into a caricature later. Why? Well I can manipulate the NORMAL version into MANY different looks easily if I want. If I started off with a warped caricature version first I would’nt be able to transform it to look like a NORMAL portrait or have many other pleasing variations as easily. The method we will be using is more flexible if you are just making a simple portrait caricature without the body.

Step 1.

Open your picture in Photoshop.

Step 2 - Duplicate Your Image

Duplicate your Image onto a new layer by right clicking on the bottom layer and clicking Duplicate.

STEP 3 – Use Liquify

Go to Filters/Liquify to distort your portrait. Let’s quickly go over the 4 most useful liquefy tools to use.

PUNKER TOOL

This tool is used to “Shrink” areas. I like to use it for reducing areas like the nose or eyes. Kind’ a looks like she had a nose job doesn't’t it?

BLOAT TOOL

This tool is used to “ENLARGE” areas. It’s the opposite of the Punker Tool. I like to use it for making bunny teeth, or is it beaver teeth? Hmmm…

FORWARD WARP TOOL

This tool is used to “Pull or Stretch” areas. It’s probably the most used tool in liquify.

FREEZE MASK TOOL

Last but not least the Freeze Mask Tool. This is very helpful if you wish to avoid distorting certain areas. On the example above I paint a mask around the nose, eyes, and lips, and use the Forward Warp Tool to pull around the face to create the look of being overweight. It’s all very fun to do.

CARICATURE EXAMPLES

As you can see from the crazy looking examples below you can get many variations and designs from liquify VERY quickly. Caricatures are mainly about exaggerating features on the person. You really don’t want to do what I did below and just make anything at random. You have to find something about that person that makes them unique, like their big head or teeth and exaggerate it. In a good caricature you want to try to capture their personality or expression. The example below shows many different styles often used.

Video Example

THE THOUGHT PROCESS
Lastly, here’s how I think of creating caricatures of any kind.

1.) You have your picture you want to caricature.

2.) You find proportions you either wish to enlarge or shrink, stretch or
squash. Here I squashed the head, and enlarged the ears.

3.) The final step usually involved with creating caricatures is to add personality
to the picture and warping (optional) the proportions so that the features
aren’t following a straight line. You want the figure to feel less stiff.
Personality can be added by the type of attitude you give the character from
tweaking the eye brows, mouth , or pose of the character.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. If you are interested in learning many more techniques like this and information and strategies on how I made the portrait before it was "caricaturized" you can purchase my book HyperRealistic Portrait Painting Secrets now available for instant download to your computer. It's full of information on creating photo real portraits and imagery in over 70 pages with video tutorials as a bonus included with the book.

Just as a little back story I made the book because for years artist who I looked up to would never want to give out their best secrets for some reason. I think that's crazy! So I vowed to never be that way. In addition, I couldn't find any kind of material that covered realistic portraits in detail or give enough information to satisfy me so I decided to make my own resource for artist to use. So If you really want to know my secrets and get started making your own hyper realistic portraits go check out the book and start learning in just a few minutes.

My secrets are yours.

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Original Artwork by Corey© Copy right of Corey Loving Inc. 2009. All rights reserved