Ben Stiller-Feb 06

[Neil]

This is my first attempt so don't laugh to hard.
I drew by hand, Scanned with my dinosaur scanner, and then retouched with PainterIX. I love this site!

[horate]

Neil, the general is good, the cartoon is funny.I don`t see very much Stiller, i know it´s a strange face to draw, .the outlines are begining to take a form, and the color nice, a body could aid the composition of the drawing.continue
cheers
Horate

[toonMom]

Not bad Neil. Don't worry, no one will laugh at you here. Adding at least a little bit of neck will get rid of that floating head look. I don't see much stiller there eithe, but that will come with time. I think he is a hard one to get anyway.

[lifedoesntimitate]

Hey, neil! Great first attempt. The shading is better than I can do. I can sorta see Stiller, but it may just be because I already know who it's supposed to be. I'm not sure if I would see it if I didn't know. Something you may wanna watch out for is that the head looks curved a bit like a banana. The top especially kinda leans drastically to the right. Something that may help is using guidelines. That way, even if you're drawing a head tilted one way or another, it'll still be straight given the dimensions of the head. Did that make sense? And as far as the Floating Head Syndrome, I kinda like it (look at my Tony Shaloub as an example), but a lot of people tend not to, so I think a neck and maybe a bit of a collar is a good idea.

Hope this helps.

-- Eric

[toonMom]

Mauri's class is great. I bought his manual too and I think it's the best book out there. I have no regrets about either. As a matter of fact, I took the class almost 2 years ago and I just went back to the first lesson and am going through them all again. Worth every penny!

[Neil]

Thanks Toonmom and Horate. I have just started to try my hand at caricatures. I find it very hard to capture the likeness. I can see it in my mind of just how it should be, but I can't get it on paper. Maybe a good dose of hypnotism would do the trick! Toonmom, is the course you took on line worth the money? Thanks for the advice. I will practice some more.

[horate]

Neil, yes it seem to be difficult at first, my expierence is that only time and practice give the necessary for improve in what you every what you choose to made.The most important is the discipline , the concentration and good sense observation.
a good concentration is the base and the observation the key for exagerations.
To me tHe secret is to take a system of drawing and repeat it skething a lot, then explore another system and repeat,.....changing system of works is one of the best things to me to improve, change techniques and watching the thousands of caricatures in the net, and of course learning from books, here and interviews of the masters....

[tooned]

welcome Neil.great to see you posting.the more you draw,the better you get.

[chrisneuenschwander]

nice neil! heres mine, quick pencil sketch, a little off but what can you do!



-Chris

[Neil]

Chris, I love it! I have been working on revising my Ben. Hey guys give me some tips on reducing the size of my pic post. It seems i have taken up the whole darn page with my feeble attempt.

[horate]

Chris i like also this one i see him, but i found extremely a short size version, i couldn´t see well the details of cross lines.
Neil, if you use Photoshop, see image size, use save for web, anyway i prefer large pictures to see details.

[lightshifter]

Here is my shot at Mr. Stiller

[horate]

good sketch, but i see another one here Light.

[dave]

Neil, that's a great first attempt, you handle the paint program very well... your statement ' I love this' is what this site is all about

Chris, great job, that has a lot of character and you handle the tones very well

Lightman, always good to see from you, nice composition and values

Dave

[lightshifter]

Thanks Dave, been trying to get out of the flat line mode.