Caricature theme - jogging and cycling at East Coast Park

Jogging for him, while she's cycling next to him.
Setting is the East Coast Park.

Caricature theme - Flintstones

Flintstones theme, with "Fred" kissing "Wilma", and the dinosaur next to them.

Q-digital Caricature theme - traditional Chinese wedding

This client ordered a couple of caricatures and portraits from me, which you will see in subsequent posts. These drawings will be used for her wedding. Not sure how she will be using them.
For this Q-Digital Caricature, she chose the available templates done by Mr Q.
The latter drew their faces in Illustrator and put in another graphic layout.

Caricature live sketching for a wedding dinner

A 4-hour event 7pm - 11pm) at St. Regis Hotel, quite a new hotel at Tanglin Road.
Ivan and his wife, Lee came along with me.
His intention was to pick up some live sketching skills from me. But in the end, he said I sketched too fast, and it was hard for him to catch. It would be easier for him to learn sketching from photos. Told him to see how I sketched first, and let him know the things to take note when I showed him these photos below.
Thus, he went around happily snapping photos of me in action, while Lee did the video shooting.
Thanks to them, if not I would not be able to post up these photos and videos, since I usually attend the events alone. The last time when I have live sketching videos posted up was in Dec 2006 - an event for ESPN. Those videos were done by Eddie, who came along with me, as he was too bored. Hahaha..... Way before that was an event done at the zoo, by my wife. That was before my daughter was born, and she is now coming to 3 years old soon. Anyway, those videos were stored in my harddisk recorder, and she occasionally watched it. No time to edit and put on my blog till now.

Back to this event.
Some videos and photos by the couple.



Ivan said he never sees me in the photos while I am sketching. Now, he gets to see it. Nothing fancy, but precious photos for me.


A pity that Lee didn't video the sketching process for this gentleman.
I like this caricature.










This was one of my favourites.


Nice angle, nice shot.



The previous caricature was smudged when put in the plastic bag, as the inked was not fully dried up. This was a re-drawn piece.


The client was so kind that he offered some food for us, but I have no time to eat.
The queue list was long.


Only got to finish this sandwich at the end of the event.






These features were easy to capture, as they were very distinctive.




You can't miss the mouth, just that she didn't smile like that when I was sketching her. If not, the resemblance will be even closer.




This lady can tell her resemblance from the reverse (upside down).


Second time I met this guy this evening. The first time was a big joke, which I can't tell you here.

He's a make-up artist from Jakarta.



The table was full of clients' caricatures. Lee laid the rest of the caricatures on chairs for drying.


She wanted a superhero theme. However, the queue list was still long. I drew her a cape with Supergirl's outfit, but without any fantastic heroic posture. She was very happy with it.


She's a doctor. Added in the statescope and syringe for her.


Last one. Quite a good end, after 4 hours of non-stop drawing. Like a marathon to me, as my events were usually 1-2 hours, though not the longest. My record was 8 hours a day, 3 days consecutively.

Caricatures for Microsoft SEA Team

This was the last piece for the Microsoft job. Whole week devoted to this job only.
Ivan didn't manage to help me out on this drawing, as he had one big project on hand.
Thus, I got to do this whole artwork all by myself.

My initial plan was to include the Official Mascots of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games -The Fuwa (Chinese: 福娃) in all these drawings, but had a problem here. How many Fuwa to put in, and how to fuse them nicely into the caricatures, and not looking redundant? In the end, I omitted them. Just the Beijing Olympics logo will do.

You may have noticed this - lots of balls shooting here and there, in different directions.
It started with the soccer player. Then, the volleyball players.
From here, I have this inspiration. Just put in the ball-related sports. Hence, the tennis, bowling, and baseball came into the scene.
This could be one of my most satisfied piece of the job for Microsoft.

Finally done. And I have to get ready to set off for a 4-hour event. Wondered if I still have the seminar.

Caricatures for Microsoft Korea Team

In order not to have too many repetitions in the sports, I grouped these people in pair for this drawing.
It all started with the Judo, the Taekwondo and the basketball.

Then I realised that all these people were in pairs. Thus, I continued with the boxing, fencing etc.But this group had only 13 people. Odd number. Obviously, there will be one left out. If not, this concept will be more ideal.

Caricatures for Microsoft - APAC Team

Squeezing my brain for juice on how to put them together.
I tried not to repeat, but it was hard.
30 over sports for 55 people. There must be repetition.

In fact, I was planning how to place them, while I was sketching along the way.

I started with the lady cycling in the centre, as she was the head of the APAC Team.
Next I put in the guy on the top right (Don't know what is this name of this sport.)
Then I put all those water-related sports like wind surfing, water polo, and canoe at the bottom, as they have a common setting.
With the curve on top right, I need the sail to bring the visual back to the drawing.
The placement of the marathon lady was determined in such a way:- running next to the cyclist, running on the water, and leap over the wind surfing board. Next factor was the shoes she was wearing, was similar to that Caucasian on the top right.
Then I played with the geometry of intersection on the left. I used the canoe as the starting point. Placed the pommel horse next to him, and the gymnast's legs intersected with the snow skis, and the ski jumper skiing out from the cyclist's back.

Caricatures for Microsoft - Hosting Team

I get Ivan to come in, to help colouring the bodies and other details.
He is one of the local artists, whose drawing style is closest to mine.
After this job, I will be guiding and training him in sketching, inking and colouring in portrait and caricature.
He has years of experience in portrait drawing, which is a strong foundation I see in him.
I am passing him some of my tips and techniques which I have gained in my 21 years of drawing faces. This should shorten his learning curve a lot. Eventually, he will help to lighten my workload in the near future. Rest assured that we will still maintain our quality in all our artworks. At least, my wife cannot tell which part was done by him, given that she has saw my drawings for 18 years. So, Ivan should be on the right track, and we are heading in the right direction. I think this is the only way to go, since the rate adjustments are not really effectively in doing so.

Caricatures for Microsoft - Marketing Team

Would have drawn in more rings to show the effect of her somersault, if she's alone in the caricature. But now it is a group of 3 people. Graphically, I don't think it looks good with too many rings. It will end up like an empty space on the drawing.

Caricature for Microsoft - New Zealand team

Only one in this New Zealand team.
Less restrictive, as I have more space to manoeuvre my strokes.
The result turned out better too, I think.