Chapter 3 | WRONG ON PURPOSE

Exercise: Try to make some funny or strange faces with the eyes, nose and mouth too big or small or at wrong heights on purpose, or turn the egghead upside down with the pointed side up as in the following drawing. You can also draw the neck and shoulders wrong on purpose.

In 1834, the French cartoonist Daumier used the shape of a pear for a caricature in a newspaper. On the right he clearly shows the shape of the pear, with the stem and leaves. In caricatures, a person’s external features are always greatly exaggerated, in this case the double chin, the enormous sagging cheeks, the gruff, frugal mouth and the narrowed eyes with furrowed eyebrows. The caricatured person did not appear to be a very cheerful person. Also notice the shadows in the face caused by the light coming from the right.

EXTRA : Also Jabba the Hutt, a gangster boss from Star Wars, has a head where the top is much smaller than the bottom. Try to draw it in a few steps (image). Start with the large shape of the head (left) and then fill in the face (middle) . Pay attention to how high the eyes are. Finish it off with fine shadows and curves (right).

To conclude this chapter: here is a comic by the American artist Bill Griffith about “Zippy” who also has the pointed side of his head at the top.