Give me back my Preschusss!

Here's one I did a while back for the rematch between former UFC champion Renan Barao and the man who dethroned him. Barao had been on a tremendous tear, unbeaten for nearly 10 years. Then he met TJ Dillishaw who had the perfect skillset and a very specific game plan to completely shut down Barao and dominate the fight.

It's hard for a successful veteran of any skill to reinvent themselves on short notice. When they met again a year later it went much the same way as many had expected it would.

TJ remains one of my favourite fighters to watch due to his unusual stance switching style and aggressive presence.

Other UFC caricatures:

'Cardio' Cain Velasquez

Nick Diaz

Renan Barao on Wikipedia

TJ Dillishaw on Wikipedia

Cardio Cain Caracature

Here's one of 'Cardio' Cain Velasquez. He has a great look with the feel of a predator, something in the rounded lines of his face making me think of a bull terrier or a shark.

Despite his distinct look and intimidating face he was really tricky to capture. He has many strong features; the cauliflower ears, the scar tissue around the brows, the strong jaw, a rounded feeling to the bones of the skull. Yet these features are shared by other fighters, especially those in the heavier weight classes. I couldn't really find any one feature that defined him, and exaggerating too much often looked good but it quickly began to look like another fighter.

Ultimately this one ended up closer to a straight portrait because of the difficulties I had. I'm happy though, because I believe I captured the likeness and that predator feeling!

Star Wars Caricature

Now that I spend a lot of my daytime hours working on environments, I've taken to working on my figure work in the evenings to keep things interesting. I watched some tutorials and sketched a whole bunch of naked people. With a growing stack of life drawings gathering dust in a wardrobe I wanted to start applying the learning to create some new things.

I developed an interest in caricature when I met Gil Rimmer. He was working for the same company at the time, albeit on a different show. I really liked the clear, bold statements he made with his art and I became curious to try out caricature for myself.

My first attempt came with Secret Santa at work. From the hat, I pulled the name of a production coordinator who is a huge star wars fanboy. So for his present he got this painting, along with the note: "For Deacon. In the Cantina or the bedroom, he always fires first".

It was created super fast and is far from perfect. I was happy with my first attempt and I really enjoyed doing it which made me want to keep going and create some more...

You can see Gil Rimmer's impressive animation portfolio here.

If you want to work on your own figure work, the tutorials I have been watching are available for free on proko.com. Stan Prokopenko does a fantastic job of simplifying the process; explaining the thinking behind the learning and keeping a great sense of humour throughout. I highly recommend his videos, and watching them in the order that he suggests here.