From Sketch To Finished Product...How Do You Know Who To Draw?

People often ask me (when I am drawing caricatures at a festivals or events) how do I know what people to draw for caricature samples?

We'll it isn't the easiest question to answer, but here is how I do it. The first thing I do is watch television. Your probably thinking...huh, I watch television to figure out what the popular shows are, and who everyone is talking about. Also, I look for long running programs like Survivor, The Office, or even The Apprentice. ( These shows have established followers that help make my caricatures more recognizable ) In some cases, I make caricatures of people of  new shows ( Cee Lo, on the right, and the new show he is on called The Voice ) Next, I turn to good ol' Yahoo and Google search engines. The search engines usually have a feature called " What's Trending " If I find a combination of a popular show on tv that has an actor or actress trending, then that is an individual I tend to draw. It sounds simple enough... I know, but the secret to get people really attracted to my samples is to make a 50/50 mixture of popular and scandalous people. This helps to stir up conversation as everyone almost always has an opinion about an actor or actress!

Here is who I identify as simply popular... People like Taylor Swift, Christina Aguilera, and Harrison Ford are people I consider popular. You hear about them in the news, but its always positive comments. Then you have the Scandalous! People I consider to be scandalous are individuals like Tiger Woods, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Pamela Anderson! These individuals seem to be caught in some kind of sex scheme, or money issues that help make for interesting topic to discuss...you get the point.

*Look for a finished Cee Lo caricature in the next blog!