Tonight I’m posting a work in progress of Admiral Mike Mullen and letting you in on a few of my methods. I chose this image by accident really. I was searching for a Brazilian artist for an interview I was working on and I stumbled across this image. It caught my attention because his face kind of reminded me of a dogs snout. Anyhow, he seemed like a good subject.

I wanted to show here how I go about the initial stages of my work. I always do a super quick “liquify sketch” of the subject in 2 or 3 minutes to get an idea of the direction I want to go with the exaggeration. I put this sketch along with a thumbnail of the source image on my top layer off to the side for reference. This allows me to see both the direction I’m going in and what not to lose track of while I’m working. At this stage, all I have done is worked from the bottom up with the source image and simply used the warp tool. Nothing else, just the traditional warp tool. I’m not concerned with detail or anything else at this point, I’m just trying to get close to the shapes I’m looking for. Sometimes at this stage I get lucky and it looks nearly finished as far as the exaggeration of the face goes. This one has a ways to go yet. I will take this, (a merged copy of exactly what you see here) into liquify next to refine the shapes and get closer to my sketch and the basic morph I’m shooting for as Russ Cook puts it. After the liquify stage, I’ll still keep the two images on my top layer for reference as I work the details, body, textures, background or situation, color, sats, etc, etc, etc. I’ve posted the original source image below. I hope this gives you an idea of how I go about my manipulations.

NOTE: As I have said many times, this is my method, not necessarily the right or the best method to use. I have no formal training…yet, so I’m not qualified to teach you. This is the way I do things. If you want to learn caricatures, I suggest you take lessons from a professional caricaturist who is qualified to teach like Jason Seiler. I’m going to try and get in on his next session if possible myself. I want to learn the art caricatures from a pro and Jason Seiler is the best.