Customer Reviews

Face Off: How to Draw Amazing Caricatures & Comic Portraits

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Harry Hamernik is one of the people I learned caricatures from about 10 years ago at Sea World In San Diego. He then moved on to be manager at Legoland and Knott's Berry Farm. I helped him start operations at Knott's, hiring 30+ artists who never drew with a marker or with a live model in front of them. It was the first time I tried to train that many artists but Harry had already been doing it for years, every season a new batch of crazy artists. So he knows how to present the needed information and reach a wide range of people. Unlike a lot of the "how to draw" books being produced these days by general artists who try to capitalize on the expanding market by publishing books outside of their field of experience, Harry is a working professional in the field. He's also an instructor at The Art Institute in San Diego, so he knows how to teach.

I also continue to teach caricatures and was thinking of writing my own book but I won't bother now. There's not much I could add to this book, I would just saying the same things in my own words. He's thought through the quick sketch process and included everything a beginner would need to know. It will also help a more experienced artists who's self taught or needs a fresh perspective on the craft. It's full of useful, step by step examples with photos of the model to compare the drawings to. He's made my job a lot easier, now when I hire an artist and begin training them I require that they practice from Harry's book and I just check on their progress.

I highly recommend this book.

Don Flaws

Face Off is the exact book I was looking for in getting started with caricatures! Most books I have found only have front, and sometimes profile view, but Face Off has these and ¾ view along with coloring techniques! I really like the diversity in people and the age range really helps me to learn how to draw all types of people. My friends and family love it when I draw them and now it actually looks like a cartoon version of them! I would recommend this book to everyone!

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.

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).

"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.

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!

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.

I've found that a lot of instructional art books on the market are poorly done, with cartooning & caricature 'instructional' books being among the chief offenders. This is because, most/much of the time, they focus on how to draw a specific drawing or another without actually teaching where they originated the idea, how they came to that interpretation of reality or any other aspects of the creative process.
This book is wonderful because it actually delves into the theory of caricatures and the creative process of interpretation between reality and cartoon. It helps you cultivate your own style and teaches you how to think better rather than merely encouraging you to copy the author's certain style--and most of all, it does a very good job at it.
I gave it 4 stars because, since borrowing it, I still haven't bought it and so I can't personally vouch for how useful it will be as a reference down the line. Also, I wish there was more of it. There's a lot, but greedily, you might find yourself wanting more from this book like I did--there's a lot, but it leaves you wanting even more. That's probably a good thing, especially since I've never seen another caricature book so competently describe the process. I'm tempted to give it 5 stars. It's a very well-written book, straight-to-the-point, informative and uncomplicated.

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.

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.