Face Off. How to Draw Amazing Caricatures & Comic Portraits

Customer Reviews

An Excellent Guide!

2007-09-28
Face Off is an excellent step by step guide to analyzing a face and creating great caricatures. I've been an artist for more than 20 years and was always amused by caricatures, but never developed a knack for creating them . . . until I got this book. After only 6 weeks of following the step by step guidelines I've developed my own style and I'm creating hilarious pictures of my friends and family. I highly recommend this book to both beginning artists and more experienced professionals looking to branch into caricatures.

Great Modern Caricature How-To

2007-08-04
"Face Off" is one of the better books on basic caricaturing, in part because of its modern, graphic-heavy approach. Also, in my opinion, this work is more up to date than most other books on the subject, even explaining how to color your drawings in PhotoShop without screwing up the original artwork.

This book covers a lot of ground, although out of necessity it isn't always what you would call "in-depth" in its information. For a broader understanding of caricaturing, I would suggest that you get this book along with another more detailed work such as Len Redmann's How To Draw Caricatures and/or Let's Toon Caricatures by Keelan Parham. I have found all of these books to be extremely helpful, especially when taken together.

Overall, this is a fun and informative book.

Good Stuff

2007-06-18
Well when I got this book in the mail, I was very excited. Only to have my bubble bust when while flipping through the pages i realized that these are more cartoons than caricatures. None the less the information presented here is invaluable to any aspiring cartoonist or caricaturist. (I strongly believe theres a difference). However i'm not really complaining I would still recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn to draw caricatures. I belive by mastering this book one would have obtained the skills to produce both caricature and cartoon portraits. So in my final analysis I would have to give it a 4/5 stars (due to my initial disapointment).

The Book I've been looking for.

2007-05-22
This book combines both great artistic skills with instructional skills to create an excellent book for the less experienced caricature artist. I found much that I could use in improving my own caricaturing within this book's pages. The author shows step by step partial drawings along with the completed black and white caricature, as well as the colored in version. I like the author's caricaturing style, not over exagerated, but very recognizable as the person pictured. This is the book, that I think I will get the most use out of, of the 4 books that I purchased together. I really love it.

You gotta get this BOOK!

2007-02-23
I cannot tell you how long I have waited for a book with this much insight. If you are an aspiring caricature artist this book is a M-U-S-T. I have been doing caricature art for over ten years and this book filled in all the gaps. Harry Hamernik tells it all and does it step by step.

Buy this book and close your account because this is all you need to grow in your craft. Well done Harry, well done.

Initially put off by style, but won me over

2008-06-15
This is one of the best commercially available books on caricature. However, I would recommend looking at a few books, rather than just this one (this isn't a standalone caricature education resource). Some of the caricatures don't look a lot like the real people they represent; whether this is an artistic choice or a limitation of the talent involved is a mystery. Many, useful techniques are contained herein; some readers may be disappointed in the results achieved and need more instruction in achieving a recognizable likeness. Worth a look; one of the best.

This is also in my library for my drawing students use.

2008-06-03
I used to do caricatures and this pretty much is what I did for over a year. This is a well designed instructional book... It gives many variations of eyes, noses, mouths, facial structure and hair style. I recommend this book as a handy reference source to my students.

An excellent and well put together book

2008-04-28
I purchased this book about a week ago after seeing it at a bookstore and seeing all of the excellent reviews for it. I have been studying art for a few years and having worked at a bookstore as well I know when I read a good art instruction book and this is definitely one of them. It has practical to do steps that gradually build a persons skill. A common pitfall of art books is they show a finished product of the artist but they leave it a mystery as to how they got there. This book will help seasoned artist as well as give newer ones confidence in their ability to do caricatures. Highly recommended!

Outstanding!

2008-02-20
I have several books on caricature and have to say this is the best. The funny thing is that some of the pages looked kind of familiar and I realized that they were some of the handouts used at the local amusement park. After looking at Harry's picture at the end, I do remember him holding some excellent training classes at the park. He has an excellent way of explaining the whole process. This is an excellent book on the subject.

Very simple to read and put it to work and learn

2008-02-11
Very good explaniation and a lot of figures for practice.
I like so much.