How to Exaggerate A Caricature Proportion

Standard and Caricature Proportions

One thing that you will need to consider in your caricature drawings is the proportions of your caricature’s head. The above image shows the breakdown of a ‘standard’ male head on the left and a caricatured head on the right.  Don’t worry if you are not totally familiar with standard human head proportions… give yourself a little test here:  

Can you spot the differences between the two heads without having them pointed out for you? 

Well for starters obviously one head looks a lot more cartoony, but that is a style difference.  You should look at the different parts of the head and how they relate to each other.  You will learn a lot about this in the full course, but for starters look at the following areas:

• How do the heads compare in width?
• Are the noses the same size? 
• What is the height of the chin?
• Where is the ear placed in relation to the shape of the whole head? 
• What other differences can you see?  

Let’s Review the Proportions of a ‘Standard’ Head

Now that you’ve spotted the differences, let’s look one more time at the ‘standard’ head and see how we can break it down into different parts. Notice the large circle that is drawn inside the head and also the lines to the left of the head. This circle forms the base of the head and is divided into 4 equal parts by drawing a line straight down the middle and straight across. 

If you look at the lines to the left, you can count and see that the circle is divided up into 8 equal parts from top to bottom. Now, because the head is not a perfect circle, we need to add 2 more equal parts to the lower part of the head for the chin, giving us a total of 10 equal parts that make up the height of the head.  

If you take those 10 parts and divide them in the middle at the 5th section you can find the marker where you should draw the eyes. If you then move down 2 more parts you can get the marker for the bottom of the nose.  Move down one more part and you get the Mouth.  Those are the markers where you can draw in the main features of the face (the eyes, nose, and mouth) so that they will look correct in relation to each other and to the head.

How to Place the Ear on a Standard Head

When the circle guide was drawn and divided into 4 equal parts you will have marked the middle of the circle very accurately.  This center point is useful because just below the middle and just to the left is where you can draw your ear.  The ear is attached to the head roughly at the same point where the eye is, and then curves up to the brow line, and then finally curves down to approximately the line that defines the base of the nose. Following these simple guides will give you a fairly realistic ear. 

Now that you have had a quick refresher of the proportions of the standard head, take a look again at the caricature head and see what differences you can notice and now things have been squashed, stretched, or placed in a different location.  

Want More Tips?

All of these proportions will be covered in detail in the course, but if you are interested in a free sneak-peak video right away, sign up below to get access to the behind the scenes info only for First-in-Line subscribers: