Samuel L. Jackson - Caricature

Digital artist Lucas Somariva gives a breakdown of his Photoshop workflow for the awesome Samuel L. Jackson caricature

In this making of I will go through the workflow I used to create my recent caricature of Samuel L. Jackson. It is a digital painting done entirely in Photoshop; I like to work at 34x34cm at 300dpi.

Step 01: Digital sketch

First of all I search on internet a lot of references of the man or woman who I'll work on. Sometimes I start my personal projects on paper, but in this case I start working directly in Photoshop. I start by finding the characteristic traits of the face with fast lines and easy shapes, building up the forms.

<h5The initial digital sketch

Step 02: Building up the details

I use this rough sketch as a guide. I lower the opacity of this layer and create another one above. Using the same brush (I make sure that Transfer is turned off) I start to define the face and rest of the body. In this step I also define the light and shadows; it helps me in the next steps.

Building up the details

Building up the details

Brush settings

Brush settings

Step 03: Adding color

I merge the drawing layers and again lower the opacity a little bit. In this step I start to paint in the separate colors of all the parts e.g. the face, coat, and so on. I create a custom brush with a canvas texture to mimic the traditional oil paint and give some texture to the strokes.

Adding color and texture

Adding color and texture

Step 04: Building up volume and depth

Many times I change the Depth of the brush texture to better define the volumes. I put the color at the background and I continue working in the details. For the beard and hair I use the same brush set to a lower size and depth. If I want to add even more texture such as on the gloves I increase the depth of the texture.

Adding volume and depth

Adding volume and depth

Brush settings

Brush settings

Step 05: The final touches

At this stage I work on the final details such as the scarf, face etc., trying to give them more texture and a more realistic look. At the end I change the color and ambient of the image a little bit in a new adjustment layer. Usually I play with Color Balance, Gradient Map, Levels or Curves until I find the best result I like the most.

I really had lots of fun creating this image. It took me a long time because I changed some parts, painted over a few times (I didn't like the result sometimes), but I need to push it more and stay happy with it.

I hope you like it!

Adding the final touches and playing with the contrast

Adding the final touches and playing with the contrast

The final image

The final image

Related links

To see more of Lucas's work go to his website
Check out our Photoshop books for more interesting tutorials
Follow 3dtotal on Facebook

Fetching comments...

Post a comment