Caricature - A real likeness

Chris Rock by A. Filetti

It's always good to have goals and one of the goals I have is to be able to create a Caricature likeness of a real person rather than carving generic folk all the time.  To be clear, carving generic folk and taking what the wood gives me is truly acceptable, this is more about expanding my talents to be able to generate a true likeness.

In studying caricature I put a lot of stock into Tom Richmond's writings, as they are well written and enable caricature abilities.  One of his key stated observations is that a good caricature can be judged by whether or not the likeness truly equates to the subject (the carving/drawing truly looks like the individual). 

As part of my studies I read other blogs, many by other graphic artists and animators.  Some of these folk publish great sketch books, one of which is Jioe Bluhm's Sketch Infectus.  This is where I found a basic drawing on which I could base the carving upon.  Utilizing the drawing and focusing on the parts rather than the whole I was able to create this latest attempt at a carving a caricature of a real person.  My hope is to next generate the Caricature drawing from which I will be able to generate a carving. 

Being critical of my work there are a couple of areas I would do differently to have a greater impact,  I believe the representation would have been better with a smaller nose a larger teeth.  I do believe this carving is close and for those who are aware of the comedian will be able to decipher the likeness.  In carving Chris I did notice that he bears a similarity to both the Prez and also to Eddie Murphy and the they truly only differ in some minor ways.

All-in-all this was a good way to stretch my skills and I hope to improve with each. 

Strop 'em up and get carving my friend!