While much attention is focused on how we cartoonists are adapting to the new president… there is another person whom we must master. The First Lady may not dominate the news as her husband, yet Michelle Obama is clearly becoming a household personality.  I enclose one of my earlry versions of Michelle Obama from this week’s Economist.

When a new President hits the scene, it is fun to watch the evolution of the Commander-in-Chief’s caricature. Artists and impressionists struggle to define and refine the essence of the President’s personality in a neat little package.  This process for me never stops during the reign of a prominent politician. I endeavor to continually develop my caricatures.

This week while visiting London, I had the good fortune to draw the cover for this week’s edition of The Economist which featured President Obama.

The artwork was quite large as you can see in the first image above but my rendition of Obama was quite small within the artwork. This required a very simple rendering of the President.  I am pleased with the final result.  I feel that I am getting better at capturing his face… though I don’t think I have it mastered by any stretch.

I drew this for a Swiss weekly called Weltwoche. When I draw characters, I sometimes watch and listen to video and audio of the person while drawing to emerse myself in their personality.  I am already getting a little tired of hearing Sarah Palin’s voice. If she get’s into the Vice President’s chair I think Tina Fey and I will have plenty of material to tap.

I have been working on my caricatures of the two Presidential candidates. It takes time to fully understand the dynamics and subtleties of a target’s face.  After months of observation, I am beginning to get the hang of these two personalities and the peculiarities of their faces. My experience suggests these caricatures should continue to improve. Let’s see!

I drew the above cartoon for this week’s issue of The Economist to accompany the magazine’s weekly column dedicated to American issues titled “Lexington”. The subject is long-time Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens who has gotten himself into a little legal mess with allegations of financial/ethical wrongdoing.

Stevens has a great face for drawing. His age (84 years) has helped accentuate his sallow cheeks and scowling brow. You can see below some of my early sketches of the embattled Senator.

Next week I unveil my newest 3-d character- the digital John McCain. Creating a 3-D animated caricature has its challenges. Up to now, I have been sculpting a static version of my characters and then carrying them to a local imaging company, Direct Dimensions LLC for scanning. The sculptures are devoid of expression as they are the “default” poses for the new characters.  

Politicians by their nature are quite active and animated people. As a result, I found it tricky to capture a politician without any motion in their face. When they are still they often do not resemble themselves! I found that my lifeless sculptures do not adequately capture the targeted politicians very well. However, after the new digital characters are rigged with the facial expressions of the politicians, suddenly the caricatures take life.

I have employed the great team from Digital Steamworks to help me in this exercise. You will see below how we moved from a sculpture of George bush to its final manifestation in a recent 3-D movie.

Below you will see the bust that resulted in the Obama caricature as well as the finished Hillary character that resulted from the sculpture above. A screen grab from a recent animation shows how they ended up in motion.

 

Check in tomorrow for news of my adventures in Azerbaijan.