WIP - Bach Caricature

[L!nK]

Here's another ongoing project.
It's in the very beggining. I will study some different compositions later.
It's going to illustrate a poster ad for a small orchestra presentation here in my town.
I used that reference, but I noticed there's a lot of different interpretations of the composer.
So far, it seems that a white wig, big nose, "mean" eyebrows and "arrogant" mouth are a must.

It seems my clients don't want a very exaggerated or humorous approach, so I'm trying not to push too far.
I'm going to decorate the piece with some baroque ornaments on the later stages.

Any crits?

[lpetkov]

You made him look like Hugo Chavez, heh.
I think the hair line should be higher, and also more work on the nose/upper lip. Work some more on the shape of the eyes too.

[L!nK]

You made him look like Hugo Chavez, heh.
I think the hair line should be higher, and also more work on the nose/upper lip. Work some more on the shape of the eyes too.

Damn! It's true!
I made some corrections to avoid this...
The skin tone would make a lot of difference also.
But I will wait until the next stages to study this.

[lpetkov]

If it's not looking right just with values, color isn't going to help.
It's much better now, but make your dark tones much darker - see, some of the tones on his left cheek are about as dark as his eyebrows.

[Kiera]

The likeness is coming along, but something makes his eyes look asian.
I'm having a really hard time putting my finger on what exactly makes him look that way,
my current guess is that it's a combination of two things:
The lack of subtle light and shadow on the area between upper lid and eyebrow makes that area look too fat and flat.
The lack of shadows on the right side of his face, around the temple, the eye and from the nose makes the area around his eyes and bridge of the nose too flat.
(compare that area around the nose in a fat, 50-something asian man and a fat, older caucasian guy:
http://d1.stern.de/bilder/stern_5/po...twidth_420.jpg
vs.
http://st.gdefon.ru/wallpapers_origi...eFon.ru%29.jpg)

I'm not entirley sure if these are the reasons that Bach doesn't look european, so I'm curious how you'll solve that .

Also careful with your values, they are very close together, no real lights or darks, just midtones. You can go far more extreme with them.


Edit:
Sigh, I was too intrigued what made the eyes look like they look so I experimented a bit:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/13/tryoutkl.jpg/
Bach also has far softer shapes around the eyes, the likeness isn't quite there jet in the overpaint (and let's not mention that I had the funny idea to use a hardbrush D.
But maybe it gives you an idea.

[L!nK]

Kiera:
Thanks for all the advice! Really, it was looking very asian. But i think I corrected it.
About the values, I'm used to start with little constrast and start building value little by little.
There's a lot to learn yet, but it's working so far.

Here's the last version on the poster ad.



I tried to simulate an old baroque portrait using a texture.
I don't have much time to work on this because of the deadline.
So people, what do you think?

[Lulie]

The eye on the right (his left) is still looking rather asian. Primarily because the top eyelid fold isn't well-defined. In this ref, it's just possible to see the eyelid fold towards the corners going into shadow. I think you may have mistaken the eyelid fold in the inner corner of his eye as eyelashes (they practically melt into each other so it's hard to see, but it's there). Likewise, in the outer corner, I think the shadow in the ref is misleading -- there are more folds, that go up higher, than you think.

Also adding to the effect is that the eyelid mass looks puffy here. In the ref, it's more mild, and the shadows wrap around the eyeball more (e.g. above his left eye). Plus you've drawn the eyes themselves (especially his left) fairly small, so it seems like there's a lot of flesh hiding the rest of them, which is more common in asian eyes. I suppose a good guideline is: caucasian eyes have thinner skin that wraps around the form of the eye more (thus creating the top eyelid fold), asian eyes have fuller skin (i.e. fleshier upper eyelids) which creates a more smooth transition from eyebrow to eye.


Another thing I'd be careful about, especially in the colour version, is the specular highlights on the face (the highlights that go lighter/whiter than the local colour). The more you include, the more waxy the skin will look, or as if he's been sweating. In the ref, there are none on the left side of his face (our right). I suspect including them also flattens the form somewhat -- takes away from the impression that side of the face is turned away from the light.
Skin typically is quite soft and has very diffuse specular highlights (sometimes no noticeable specular highlights at all), except for more greasy areas like nose, or sometimes smooth areas like lower forehead and below the eyes.

And last, tiny, nit-picky photographer thing: your catchlights are almost in the middle of the eyes, whereas the light source (and indeed the ref) would have them higher and slightly to the left (his right). I just mention this because having them in the middle of the pupil gives the 'on-camera-flash' look and you basically never see it in nature.

[L!nK]

The eye on the right (his left) is still looking rather asian.

I finished it last week. Made some correction before printing the poster. Here's the last version!