Cartoon or Caricature?
by Kent Lind

(click on any image for a larger view)
Reprinted with permission from Airbrush Action (June 2000)

Renowned T-shirt artist Kent Lind takes a lighthearted look at two techniques he uses to communicate the character of his subjects.

This article is inspired by the requests of various Airbrush Action Getaway students over the course of the last few years. On one particular afternoon, I was asked to demonstrate the various ways in which I render people. The exact question, I think, was:

"How do you do people?"

Although I thought the question seemed a bit personal, it made me sit down and think about the process. Being a capitalist pig, I immediately brought it down to its simplest form: "What am I being paid?" Of course, there are a few more factors to consider, but not many.

The first step is to figure out your customer's intent. In other words, do they want something funny, or are they looking for something serious (which, in most cases, can be translated to "cheap" or "expensive")? The way I look at it, there are three basic options: cartoon, caricature, or portrait.

If they're looking for something serious, your choice is clearly a portrait. In this case, refer to any of Steve Driscoll's work (Just pull out Airbrush Action's 1994 Excellence Competition issue with Steve's incredible award-winning John Belushi painting, if you don't believe me). I could go through the entire painstaking process, but Steve has already paid that price for us, so we'll start somewhere else. If the customer's intent is a funny or humorous T-shirt, then we have a couple of options left.

When you're at this stage, cut right to the chase–be blunt and ask them: "What's your budget?" Don't kid yourself, this simple approach will save you a lot of time in determining your course of action. When I ask customers what they want to spend, they'll usually come back with some-thing like, "What are my options?" or, more commonly, "What's the cheapest?"

In either situation, the answer is the same. "If you'd like a general, non-specific cartoon style, it will cost you x. If you'd like something a little more personal, like a caricature, it will cost you y."

I typically charge about $25 for a cartoon on a shirt and $35-$45 for a caricature, depending on the difficulty. Remember, we're talking about rendering people, but this approach can definitely work in other areas as well. You could just as easily be talking about a car, a pet, or a snowmobile. Your prices will probably vary for whatever you're rendering, but your approach will remain the same.

I've broken down the thought and painting process for each of my humorous styles for you here. Keep in mind that these images are done on T-shirts. If you want to see a kick-butt caricature on illustration board, go back and check out Tom Richmond's Jesse Ventura How-To (Oct. 1999) or anything by Sebastian Krueger.

Cartoon

For my subject matter, I've invented a customer who has an Uncle Mikey who loves to do artwork for his family and friends. This customer wants to show her appreciation to Uncle Mikey by giving him an airbrushed T-shirt that's unique to his personality. We're told that Uncle Mikey has blonde/brown hair, is fairly average physically, and likes to use crayons for his artwork. We'll take these ideas and start to formulate a plan using the easiest (or cheapest) version, the cartoon style.

Start by making a drawing on the shirt. Remember, Mikey is an artist and, although he's not too bright, he is a happy chap. I keep both the physical attributes and the intangible elements in mind as I draw the figure. Also, note that I incorporated his chosen art "medium," but I made the crayon a bit larger than life.

The first step with paint is to pull out the black. The important thing to remember here is to maintain variety in the lines. In other words, use lots of thicks and thins to make it bounce.

The next step is to do what we call "washes," or light layers of color to bring out the initial flesh tones. In this case, I've used golden yellow and flamingo pink. I also moved right into the hair to save myself from having to pull out the golden yellow again later. Notice how I hit certain areas, such as the inside of the eyes, and the cheeks and lips, with a little more flamingo pink.

At this point, we haul out our light brown. I added some golden yellow to make the color more ochre and less red. This is when the form really starts to take shape. Again, I moved into the hair to add more shape to it.

My next color was a 50/50 mixture of light and dark brown, which I used to add more contrast to the cartoon. From here, I also finished the eyes and added all of the facial highlighting. Use white to punch out any area that you feel needs it, but don't go overboard.

Finally, I completed all of the peripheral work. In this case, it's his shirt, his crayon, the lettering, and so on. Don't forget to add all kinds of highlights to give it that groovy airbrush look.

The more difficult (or expensive) style is the caricature, which is basically falls some-where in between a cartoon and a portrait. It's supposed to look like the person, but in an exaggerated form. Similar to the cartooning steps I used earlier, the approach is more subtle. For this picture, I've decided to pick on someone I know. Instead of "Uncle Mikey, The Crayon Artist," this is "Michael Cacy, The World-Renowned Airbrush Illustrator." (Michael, I apologize to you in advance.)

Again, our first step is the drawing. There are numerous books and materials out there to help you learn the art of the caricature, so I'm not going into that here. I like to call my style "portricature"–it's not a portrait, but it's not a super whacked-out "Krueger-esque" caricature either. Since I know Michael, I can let some of his "inner self" really shine. You should also know that my reference came straight from the Getaway ads in Airbrush Action. It's pretty typical of the photo quality I get from my customers for this kind of shirt.

The first color I used was a light brown, with golden yellow added. I painted all of the figure's detail and form with this mixture.

Next I do washes, using the same colors I used for Step 3 of the Uncle Mikey cartoon.

I use the half light, half dark brown color again to add depth and contrast. Since Michael's hair appears to have this mix, it was a good time to flesh out that area as well.

The darkest skin tone color is 2/3 dark brown mixed with 1/3 violet, which darkens up the brown without adding black. Unlike the cartoon style, I rarely use black in the figure when I'm creating a caricature on a T-shirt. Black is usually restricted to the pupils and perhaps the hair. In this case, I had a feeling we'd be using more gray in the hair, especially in the beard.

This next step may seem like I took a huge jump to completion, but all I really did was the remaining peripheral work. The beard was done mostly with gray and white with a little wash of brown. Everything else is as it appears. The background is caribbean blue with violet, and the shirt is phthalo blue.

The final step is to bring out the highlights in the figure and all of the surrounding material. With the additional glare, the glasses really pop out and so do the eyebrows and beard.

One last thought: remember to be your own artist! Nobody likes a copycat. It's O.K. to be inspired by other people's work, but it's really important do your own stuff!

Kent Lind uses the Vega 2000, but he is contemplating a switch to the Iwata Eclipse (which he used for this article). Kent owns and operates concessions at Valleyfair and Six Flags St. Louis amusement parks. He uses Createx paint and Aqua Flow black and white. He lives in Eagan, MN. with his wife, Lisa, and their "little Princess" Sophie.

Airbrushes & Supplies