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A little bit about tools and setup I’m using for any caricature I do. I’m usually starting all caricatures with not big size of canvas about 1000x2500px to quickly make a rough study of character then when it’s appear as I want I resize and crop illustration to the size I think will be good for composition. And then resize it to big size like 5000x7000px. For the sample work of Audrey Tautou have final size 4000x6000px with 300dpi. Also for all drawings I’m using only two brushes from the standard Photoshop set: Soft Round Pressure Opacity brush (for smoothing work in face surfaces, closes and hairs, for some mute effect etc) and Airbrush Hard Round 13 for sketching, detailing and blocking with hard and bold dubs. Also sometime for thin hairs I’m using Hard Round Pressure Size brush. And for texture skin I am also sometime using the smudge tool with a textured brush if I need to make all glares and pores not so sharp on same face planes. During work I’m changing the size of the brush and opacity using hot keys for sizes and for opacity, very comfortable and useful and speed up work at lot.
Regarding layers.
I usually have one layer for background, one layer for caricature. So I’m painting almost like in real but to save time do background and character on two different layers. If during the process I want to test any option then I create a new layer and paint over it, if I like how it looks then I’m merging it with the main layer for the character or for background. Also sometime using the clipping mask for some adjustments.
When I’m drawing a caricature I’m usually starting with very rough lines to set up all main features of character, and trying to achieve likeness at this point. But not each person allows to caricaturist open their character easily so I didn’t bother with a good likeness at this point and quickly go to next stage blocking with color.
At first time I’m putting big rough colored dabs with easy principle starting from local color then add shadow pattern and then add lights. During this stage I’m giving more attention to the likeness and trying to set all features more like our person we are caricaturing.
Then when main blocking are done, I’m working with face by doing whole surface of the head more smooth and creating a pallet of colors more rich so in other words I’m going from simple to more complex palette and trying to make skin colors more natural but in same time adding reflexes and hues depend from the environment and lighting. But still working with main plans knows any details or final adjustments. Just setting main planes and working out light, color palette and volume.
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