Nate

Nathan Sakulich.

Feifei

FeiFei Sun.

Bob

Bob Pendarvis.

The ISCA con! (Part 3)

This is Kari Fry:

Kari has been blessed with unusually interesting features (in a good way, as you can see), which is a wonderful thing at a caricature convention. It seems as though every master in the room made a beeline for her face as soon as they caught sight of it. How I envy her.

Here are some of the drawings and paintings of Kari that I managed to get pictures of. There are a million potential creative solutions for a caricature of any person's face, as you can see below.

Toru Tanaka

Angel Contreras

Danielle Corsetto

Tomokazu Tabata! I could not be more jealous.

Paul Moyse, I think?

Roger Hurtado

I don't have credits for all of these, so if anybody from the con knows who did what and could fill me in, please do!

The ISCA con! (Part 2)

Some of my work from the con.

Scott Whatshisface. I can't remember his last name. Sorry Scott!

Carlos Garcia. I had trouble with his face at first, but this probably ended up being my favorite drawing I did during the week.

Natalie Yeckley. As you can see from this picture, I am clearly not in this line of work to make any friends. Another great thing about the convention is that you can be as cruel as you like in your drawings, and since everybody else is a caricature artist, they'll love it all the more for it.

Andrea Gerstmann, who did an amazing painting of me and a bunch of other really nice work too. Check it out on her blog.

Dan Laib. This guy was a hoot.

Joe Bluhm. It was great to finally meet Joe, who has been a bit of a hero to me ever since I began working in retail caricature and was introduced to his work. His dedication and sense of purpose were both very impressive, and a great source of inspiration for me from the convention onward.

Bil being drawn by Joe and looking like a kid in a candy store.

The ISCA con! (Part 1)

The ISCA convention was incredible! I met so many talented people, had a fantastic time, and learned a ton. I feel like this week alone has taught me more than I learned in a semester of art school! The talent in the air at that convention was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Being around so many great artists and being able to see both their artwork and creation process was at once very inspiring and (extremely!) humbling.

ISCA (the International Society of Caricature Artists, formerly the NCN) holds an annual convention somewhere in the world at which caricature artists of all stripes gather to participate in competitions, attend seminars by master caricaturists, watch presentations by guest artists (this year's convention brought Tom Richmond, Sam Viviano, Mark Fredrickson, and Hermann Mejia, all of whom have worked / do work for Mad magazine in some capacity), and generally just have a great time and meet people. This year's convention was in Sandusky, Ohio at the Kalahari resort, and Bil and I decided that we wouldn't be able to forgive ourselves if we missed the last time the convention would happen in our backyard.

Most of the convention took place in a large ballroom area where a few hundred people sat around drawing one another. Each participating artist was assigned a number and a section of wallspace in which to hand their work. This video by Brain Vasilik will allow you to live vicariously through the experiences of both him and myself, as you no doubt richly desire. Notice the handsome chap at 4:45.

At the end of the week, the room is emptied of clutter and people can circle the room to view all of the finished work and vote by ballot for the artists / pieces that will receive a variety of awards, including "most humorous," "best black and white technique," "best abstract / design piece," "best retail party style," and so forth. Following this, an awards banquet is held to present the victorious artists with their prizes, and to award the coveted "Nosey" awards (bronze, silver, and golden) which are given to the artists deemed the three best caricaturists of the year.

In addition to this general competition, there are also a likeness and speed competition that are held separately. The speed competition was a great time and I'm really glad that Natalie and Kayla convinced me to partipate, despite my protestations that I draw like a slug in winter in a pool of molasses. That hack Joe Bluhm somehow managed to sneak away with first place in this year's speed competition; he must have bribed the judges again or something. Here's a video by Emi Sato so you can laugh at his embarrassingly sorry artwork.

Pictures on the way!

Draw my self-portrait, won't you please?

Leaving for the ISCA convention in Sandusky about a half hour from now!

A few of the characters I hope to run into while I'm there:

Toru Tanaka

Tony Parsons

Ron Kantrowitz

Paul Flatley

Klaas Op De Beeck

Sean Gardner

Over the summer, I remember avidly looking at the archives of Sean Gardner's blog on mornings before work to inspire myself, and it never failed to get me hyped up to go out and draw.

Sean does some of the most outlandish exaggerations I've been lucky enough to see in live work, and his technical ability with Prismacolor Art Stix is unparalleled. He can get some really amazing modeling out of those little things, and it still baffles me how he's able to do it. He clearly puts a lot of thought into color, and uses a much broader palette than most of the caricaturists I know, capturing blues, greens, purples, and yellows people's flesh that many people don't bother to spot when working quickly.

He also specializes in zombie caricatures! This is a self-portrait.

See more work by Sean at his blog.

Tomokazu Tabata

In a little under a week, I'm going to be journeying to Sandusky for the annual ISCA convention, where caricaturists from around the globe will be gathering to participate in workshops (held by the likes of Jan Op de Beeck and Jason Seiler!), challenge one another in various competitions, and basically just hang out, have a good time, and get to know one another.

So, in the time leading up to the event, I thought I'd talk about the work of some of the artists I admire most and will hopefully meet soon.

I've loved Japanese artist Tomokazu Tabata's art ever since I first saw it in Exaggerated Features magazine. He's got a totally unique style--incredibly perceptive and always capturing great likeness, but extremely simplified and abstracted. His live drawings are some of the most creative and laugh-out-loud humorous I've ever seen. In addition to markers, he uses watercolor and watercolor pencil for his live work; an unusual choice that leads to great results.

His abstractions are always new and different and can be a great source of inspiration for how to handle various facial features.

See more of Tomo's work at his website.