DIGITAL CARICATURE - BILLY IDOL

A BLACK AND WHITE (DIGITAL PAINTING) CARICATURE OF BILLY IDOL

I'm not really a fan of Billy Idol. But he was such a big name in the music world and he got that unique facial features that I couldn't resist to to get my hand on. Wow, that came out wrong. I mean, well.. you know what I mean. Every caricature artist must have drawn him at least once, I think. I don't consider myself a caricature artist, but I love caricature art so I do it from time to time just for the pure pleasure of it.

THE REFERENCE PHOTO:

*source: http://www.themontrealeronline.com/2015/01/billy-idol-metropolis/

THE PROCESS:

The first thing I do before I starts to paint or draw is; stares into nothing for a few minutes. Planning.

I'm starting this one on a (digital) black canvas.

By using a wide brush stroke, I paint the shape that I wanted for his head.

And roughly blocking his facial form to put everything into place. This technique is very similar to sculpting.

The fun part is exaggerating the face to the point of extremely ridiculous proportions.

The challenging part is to keep and maintain the likeness of your subject and at the same time making the distorted face to somehow look just right for them.

The process from here...

..to...

..here is just the detailing on the face using a smaller brush strokes. The canvas is zoomed in the this process and i'm painting all the small facial details in close-ups.

For the first layer of his hair, I use a thick brush.

On the second layer, I refine the hair using a thinner brush with a little more control than the first layer.

Finishing this with a little touch-ups on the hairline and his forehead with some soft shading on the hair.

FINAL IMAGE:

I masked the final image with grainy textures with a light sepia tinge.

PROCESS GIF:

Thank you for dropping by!

- oRen! -