Caricature tutorial: Project Dubya

George Bush's main 'hook' is the mouth and nose. The nose is pinched similar to that of John Lennon (featured later). The mouth, however, is pure Bush. It's an interesting mouth as the upper lip appears to belong to a larger mouth than does the lower lip. Therefore it overhangs the lower lip slightly. However, there is no "slightly" in caricature so this is homed in on and exaggerated.

The eyes are fairly simple as he has thick eyebrows and an almost permanent squint as if gazing into the sun. You'll notice that the eyebrows are simply a squiggly line forming an arch and the eyes are just a single stroke. No need for fine detail here.



I tend to draw the features first before framing them with the head and hairline. This last is easy to rub out, alter etc. without interfering with the features. Get the likeness sorted then decide how you want to draw the head. As you can see on the right. The likeness is already established with just the face. This could now be applied to a gorilla, a horse, a blue whale or whatever. Everyone will know it's a caricature of Dubya. So let's look a little more closely at those 'hooks'....


Draw the most characteristic feature first (in this case, his mouth) as this is the easiest bit to evaluate in isolation. You'll know if it's right or not without having to draw the rest in to see the likeness.


When you're happy that you've got this right, You can draw in the eyebrows and eyes. Although the eyes are single strokes, the position of the eyebrows suggest that the eyes are squinting rather than closed. If the eyebrows were raised slightly, the eyes would look closed.

Bush does not have a strong jawline so his face is framed with simple curves down to the chin. This, in turn, protrudes only slightly and is not particularly pronounced.

As for the hairline, you'll see that I've sketched this in rather crudely and, had I inked this in, I would have retained a crude sketchy look to this. Bush's hair is an interesting texture so that, although not tousled as such, it never looks freshly combed. The ears are well proportioned. Having had a spate of public figures with large ears, British caricaturist seem to be drawing large ears on everybody by default. I always felt that too much was made of Blair's ears but I think this was to compensate for the fact that he had no strong visual hooks.

Politicians are always good subjects to learn caricature as there are so many examples to inspire you. Practice by shamelessly copying other caricatures in the papers. Then practice by drawing from photo references and finally practice by drawing from memory. If you can draw presentable caricatures of politicians, you can find a market in the press and magazines. But don't delay.... they have a habit of retiring or dying just at the point that you've got the hang of drawing them!