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.

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

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

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

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

The final image

Related links

To see more of Lucas's work go to his website
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