Caricature theme - underwater wedding

I did a job for this client from Hong Kong in 2007.
This time, she requested (from my Facebook) for a wedding caricature as a gift for her niece.

She's not really sure of what theme she wanted initially.

"....As for theme, they are both dog lovers and they call each other nick names ‘Fish.’ I am not sure would that be useful...."

The initial size required was A0, but was changed to A1 size.
Thank goodness too. A1 (59.4cm x 84cm) was already very huge for couple caricatures - biggest size I have done so far for couple.

I proposed a underwater wedding theme for them, with her being the mermaid bride.


Along this line, but different design.

I joined 2 A2 size marker paper on 1 card, using different elements like fish, hair, coral, flower etc to hide the joining part, just like the job for Philip Morris.
I added in those fish from the movie "Finding Nemo" to spice up the drawing.

See the 'painful' process here......

Done, after hours of drawing. Unfortunately, the client not very happy with it.
Gotto do some facial surgery......

Still not happy....:(
"Honestly it's better but still something is wrong..."


One more go, added in longer hair, some hair to cover her face, more shading to her cheeks,, and a tiara to cover the top part of her hair
"I think it's a great idea to add a tiara to her hair...thanks for
the thoughts..."

"Jit ,
You are the best!
Connie"
It's really a "phew phew phew!"

Amend till I don't know what else to amend.
At least now she's a happy client.
This A1 size drawing was rolled up in a huge postage tube, and shipped to HongKong. Hopefully no damage to it....... and most importantly, this couple will like it.

digital group caricatures of CSC

Client's brief:-
"I was thinking aloud of maybe having the management team carrying Mike while he could be holding a globe with the landmark popping out.....
Hence I thot you would be grouping the pp and so it is not important where they are from . Hence you asked me to proivde names so that i can advise you who to move where, remember?


Anyway, there are 2 photos of Mike Shove - he is the President - the person we are giving the drawing too - you decide if to refer to the one with jacket or without..your call.


So the countries with a required landmark will be :-
1. Spore
2. Msia
3. HK
4. Japan
5. China
6. Korea
7. Thailand
8. Indonesia
9. Philippines
10. Vietnam
11. Taiwan


You decide what would be a good icon to show in the drawing...."


2 draft previews as per requested by the client.
My preference is the top one, and the client eventually chose the same one.:)


The client wanted a huge one for this - A1 size. I don't draw many artworks of this size often.
As the biggest marker paper available in the market is A2 size, to draw it in A1 size, I have to join 2 pieces of A2 marker paper together.

I wanted a change this time.
Still the same A1 size as per requested, but I proposed to the client to do it digitally. Still hand-drawn, instead of on paper, I draw on my Cintiq (computer). In fact, upon completion, I found that I have to spend more time on it than drawing on paper.

But the advantage here is that I can draw them on separate later, and position them as deemed fit.

The completed sketch in lineworks.


Light colour wash applied to the sketch of the main subject.


The completed artwork.


And this is the main reason for drawing it digitally - I can print it out as one piece in A1 size, without joining two A2 size marker paper together as one piece. Though the joining part is not really obvious, but the feeling of having one piece is always better, right?
The above photo is to give you an idea of how big an A1 size artwork is.

"Just Married!" - wedding couple caricatures on wedding signature board

Client's brief:-
"Hi Jit,
I’ve a wedding couple who would like to engage your services.
They would like a caricature of them (size of A4) but drawn on A1 paper.
The caricature would be drawn at the bottom corner of the A1 paper, with about 50 balloons (with string)...."


Zoom-in on the caricature artwork.

The caricatures drawn on the A1 size (59.4cm x 84cm) wedding signature board, mounted on compressed foam board for easy handling as well as display.

Caricatures for Philip Morris - Imperial theme

A farewell gift this big boss.
They wanted to portray him as the Emperor, while the rest will be his subjects.
As they were 52 of them, I have to draw these caricatures on A1 size paper. However, the biggest marker paper available in the market is only A2 size. Thus, I had to join 2 A2 size marker paper together. To join together without making the joint part obvious, I came out of the concept that the more important people on the top, while the sales executive etc will be at the bottom. The split line is where the steps started. Background will be The Forbidden City, Great Wall of China, a flag with Philip Morris Singapore logo, and a big banner of “天下太平” (World of Peace).
Their initial idea was to have about 120 of them (Nearly broke the record of Coca-Cola of 88 caricatures). But due to budget reason, they cut down the number of caricatures to be drawn. Saw those silhouettes in the background at the lower portion of the artwork? They were the sales force team.


2 pieces of A2 drawings done separately.



The inked version. I didn't change their hairstyle or removed their glasses, just added in some headset and porny tails, so that they can still identify themselves in the caricatures, as they were so used to one another's features, including their glasses which became part of their facial features.

The scanned version on top, and digital camera taken version below. Did you see any difference?

2 photos snapped by my son. See the huge size of the drawing when join together? The size of the faces, however, were real small. Hard to draw at this scale, with resemblance.

The framed version. A specially made frame, with 2 pieces of glass holding the A2 printout (The client will be bringing this oversea. Thus they have to make this portable by printing the scanned version into A2 size) and signatures and photo of the salesmen together. The glass border made the whole artwork floated. Can't really tell from these photos as I didn't snap it against a plain colour background. Can't find such space in my shop when they were taken.

Caricature theme - Argentina soccer player

Client's brief:-
"Hi Jit,

I need to do caricature of him on A3 and mount on A1 art board with white background for guest to sign. He is celebrating his 50th birthday and is a football fan and a big fan of Diago Maradona of Argentina ( jersey must be of the country and No.10 on the shorts as well). The event is on 24th April 2010, please pass me drawing by 22th April 2010. The words on the drawing should be “Sajen’s 50th Birthday “. His face must resemble or must be close to his actual picture attached. "

Caricature theme - fairy tale wedding @ Goodwood Park Hotel

Client's brief:-
"Hi Jit,

I chanced upon your website and am very impressed with your work. I would like to have a color caricature done for our wedding poster (A1 size). I have attached a version of how we would like the poster to be and our photo. The theme of our wedding is fairy tale and we are holding it at Goodwood Park Hotel. So we would like to have the hotel in the background like a castle with fireworks and we are dancing in the foreground with animals surrounding us."


The client changed to A2 size eventually. Still quite big for a couple caricature.
What I worried was the fireworks may not turn out good.
I used pastel pencil + colourpencil + blanko to do it. Didn't look too bad, especially when framed up.

Sketching process here.

Client's response:-
"Very nice!"

Caricature theme - wedding at Ferris Wheel

A new landmark in Singapore soon - Singapore Flyer. Heard that it will be ready next year end, is it? Not really easy and fun to draw. Usually landmarks are like that.

Heard from news that Beijing and other cities are also building such Ferris Wheels. Seems like all wanted to have the biggest wheel in the world. What's so good about this wheel? Can see most city wheel from there? Since when such stuff usually found in carnivals become a country's landmark? And many other countries are having one too? Do you still consider it as a landmark? Unless they change the design....

Ok. Back to the drawing part. The client requested for the Singapore Flyer in the background.
Instead of normal groom carrying the bride posture, she wanted a reverse. Quite refreshing, right?

She used to work in F&N (now in Philips. She said she saw my drawing there too) and engaged me to draw a group caricatures for their company. My highest record so far - in terms of number of caricatures in one drawing. Think about 88 of them on A1 size paper.

Can you see where she was in this drawing? Maybe too small to view it clearly here. She's the girl popping the Coke on top of the Coke building.

Caricature theme - DJ

This client used to work in BEA, and engaged me to do this caricature of his boss in Mona Lisa theme. Now, she's working in IBM.
She doesn't know that I am the same person till she walks into my gallery.
As usual, I can't remember most of my customer faces. Hahaha.....

This time, this caricature was meant to be used as a poster for the cheer team for this girl 哓云, who will be participating in a Star DJ competition in Bishan Junction 8 this Saturday, held by FM Yes 93.3, as what the client told me.

Instead of having her holding a mic, which may make her look more like a singer, I have her standing on a golden mic, doing her favourite posture.

As the client was going to blow it up to A1 size, I did this caricature on an A2 size marker paper (biggest size available in the market). This was scanned in and I did the rest in Photoshop.

This was the final outcome. Not bad, right? Spent about an hour in spicing up this caricature.

Looked more like those flash card which was very popular in the 1990s.


Edited version, as the client wanted longer eyelashes and brighter eyes. I have toned down the yellow a bit, so that it will look better when she get it printed out.

Portrait for SeaCAD Technologies

No highlights in his eyes, as seen in the photo provided.
Layman will usually associate highlights in the eyes with cheerful, bright and nice eyes.
The challenge here was to achieve this mood, through his smile and expression etc.
It used to be a challenge to me when I started drawing portraits in my early days.
However, over the years of drawing, I focus on the overall feel, instead of the eyes alone.
My clients always said that once we get the eyes correct, it will look like that person.

I don't think so, at all. You can get the eyes right. But if the nose, smiles, teeth etc don't look alike, and worse - if the proportion was out, everything will be wrong. No matter how much effort you put in the shading etc, you are just wasting your time. The starting point must be right. The framework must be correct. How to get the proportion right? This concerns with the vertical and horizontal proportions, and the relationships between all the features. It may sound difficult, but I can tell you all these in a few minutes. How you can do right, require lots of practice. If you don't realise this, it will take you years of struggling with the proportions, and may not get it right.

I realised this when I was doing those A1 size airbrush portraits. How to sketch out the portraits from the small photos onto the huge drawing paper? I was quite excited when I found out the relationship between them, and these were not found from those art books. At least, I have not come across them yet. Everything looks so easy since then. Then, I found out that the next (higher) level of challenge was to get the expression, and (then) mood of the subject right. If you can't achieve that, your drawing will never be able to convey the message the subject was trying to project. This requires lots of drawing experience (practice). The more you draw, the better you are, as I always believe this - Skill comes from Repetition! I am still working hard on that in every of my drawings. There isn't an end. Just keep drawing - that's what I always tell those people interested in drawings. No shortcut.

group caricatures for UBS

A farewell gift for the boss, from the Singapore and Hong Kong teams.

The boss likes mountain climbing.

There are 13 Singapore staff and 20 Hong Kong staffs, 7 VIPs.
Total 41 people, including the boss.
A rather big group after the Philip Morris and Coca Cola jobs.

Given the big numbers, I have to draw them on an A1 size (59.4x84cm) paper.
Huge one, and I have to join two A2 size paper together.


The background is the Singapore and Hong Kong skylines/landmarks.



I separated the teams into red (for Singapore team), blue (for Hong Kong team) and orange (for VIPs), for easy identification at one glance.

This job was done in conjunction with the Pico Art job. I started the pencil sketch and inking while waiting for the photos of the latter to come in. Colouring was done after the Pico Art job was completed.
Just need to clear all the jobs before my Chinese New Year holiday.

The client gave me a ring:-
"Very nice. My boss (the subject) likes it a lot!"

Caricature live sketching for XL Insurance Cocktail Party

A 3-hours (6:30pm- 9:30pm) event at River Room, Asian Civilisations Museum.
Upon arriving this place, it reminded me of the 3D project which I have done about 2 years ago.

The client requested for 3 caricaturists for this event.
I got Reggie and Kamal to partner me in this job.

The client's initial plan was to have each of us to spend one hour on capturing the atmosphere/scenario of this party, in the form of caricature on one big piece of paper.
They will auction off this drawing subsequently.

The next 2 hours will be sketching individual guests, who will sit in front of the artists, which we usually do for events.

First thing which strucked me was - we will have 3 different styles of drawing on the paper.
How to blend them nicely will be a problem. Kamal told me that he once did that for his client. That time was rather disastrous, as client's expectation and what the artist can do for live sketching cannot meet easily, since the guests would not stand still in front of you.

I can understand that. I can foresee the problems and difficulties too.
However, the client insisted to have that, as her boss like the idea.
No choice, and since Kamal has voiced out, I will take up the job alone, while the 2 of them handle the individual guests.
Thus, I told them that - be prepared that the resemblance wouldn't be there, as the guests will not keep still. They agreed, but I can still tell that they have rather high expectation for this big drawing. Sweat......
This will be a challenge to me. But I was rather excited, as it was something different from what I usually do. I don't like to repeat similar jobs, as it will become too mundane over time.

This was the paper provided for me, ablut A1 size.
I did some rough sketches (on site) on how to approach this drawing before the event started.

The guests started to flow in around 6:30pm.
And now I found another obstacle.
Besides of moving around, the subjects were blocked by other moving guests.
Headache.....

I did 1-2 persons at a time, from pencil sketch to inking.
Thank goodness that I brought my brush (newly bought) for this event, and nt the fountain pen alone.
Right after the first guest( the boss) was drawn, I knew that I can't use the fountain pen for this job.
It was too slow, as the lines were a lot finer.
To complete this job within 3 hours, I have to use a bolder strokes, with the help of my brush.

After years of experience drawing group caricatures, besides the problems mentioned above, to fill up the space (aesthetically) on the drawing was not a tough job for me

I just need to make sure that nothing will go wrong to this drawing, and going at the speed which I was drawing, I should be able to complete it within 3 hours.
As the guests started to crowd around, my only worry was that they (and handbags) will knock my table and ink bottle accidentally.
Thus, besides full concentration on the drawing, I have to watch out for them.

Some photos of me working, snapped by Reggie's friend Henry.

They were emailed to me by Reggie after the event.
Thank you, Henry and Reggie.:))

Occasionally, while I was sketching halfway, the guests came around.
To my surprise, they can see the resemblance in the drawing, and most of the time, they can tell who they were. Wah!!! Seriously, I was thinking that I was drawing cartoons, and not caricatures for this event before this.:)))

Job completed in 2hours and 40 mins. Phew!
Reggie gave me a thumbs up, and said good job.
Thank you.

Some of the guests found out that they were not in the drawing.
They requested for me to put them in.
They stood still in front of me! Haha.......

The 2 bosses of XL Insurance.
The big boss on the right, told me that he wanted another group caricatures of him and his staffs yto be drawn by me after this event, as he likes this drawing. Thank you.

Reggie and Kanal at work.


Kamal told me that we have yet to have a group photo.
Let's make it the first time then.:)))