Making Of 'Morgan Freeman Caricature'

Introduction

Hello everyone, my name is Prosenjit Mondal, and this is the Making Of my latest 2D piece, Morgan Freeman Caricature. I'm going to explain to you how I created it and I'll try to keep it as simple and accurate as I can. I chose Morgan Freeman because I believe he is one of the best actors in the world, and I wanted to create a caricature, this time maintaining more realism with the textures.

Step 01

Step one included collecting various pictures of Morgan Freeman. I would like to thank Google for making my search so easy and providing me with pages and pages of pictures, from which I studied his expressions and generated an idea for my caricature (Fig.01).

Fig. 01

Fig. 01

Step 02

Then I started sketching in Photoshop. Before I started, I arranged all my brushes, like the Hard Round brush and the Sample brush. You can see examples of all the brushes I mentioned in Fig.02, like No.5 or No.50 (Window > Brushes or F5).

Fig. 02

Fig. 02

In brush properties I arranged all the settings as per my requirements, with Pressure Sensitivity set to opacity.

For this brush I used a pretty small, round, basic shape and I adjusted the Shape Dynamics, added some texture and also gave some values in Other Dynamics under the brush properties (Fig.03).

Fig. 03

Fig. 03

In Fig.04 you can see examples of my brushes. For pencil tone and shading purposes, these kinds of brushes achieve better results.

Fig. 04

Fig. 04

Step 03

Next I did some quick scribbles, sketches and doodles for some basic ideas. Mostly I tried to create volumes and rhythm, and kept it simple and neat. I used a total of three layers because if you have any changes you can easily make them later (Fig.05).

Fig. 05

Fig. 05

After I'd completed the basic sketches, I copied all three layers and merged them, then decreased the opacity from the layer properties and created new layer.

In this layer I went for more detailing on his face, eyes and hair through different kinds of pencil shadings. You can see examples of all the strokes I used in Fig.06 - 08.

Fig. 06

Fig. 06

Fig. 07

Fig. 07

Fig. 08

Fig. 08

I knew that eyes and the mouth area are very important when it comes to portraits or caricatures, so I worked hard on those particular areas. Now my sketching part was finish and I could move on to adding colors.

Step 04

After I'd completed my sketching part, I copied all the layers and merged everything into a single layer. Then I selected Multiply from the Layer properties options menu of the "sketch" layer. I did this because by using the Multiply option I could see my drawing and decide whether it was going accordingly or not when I painted in color. For coloring, I always prefer the brushes shown in Fig.09 (Hard Round airbrush and Pen Opacity Flow airbrush).

Fig. 09

Fig. 09

I opened a new layer under the sketch layer and started to roughly paint in the shape of the face using a darker or medium color for the head. It's important to choose the appropriate color at this stage because the base color will lead to add more detailing later.

Then I used darker tones on his eyes, mouth and lower face. On the third stage, I used darker tones, as shown in the circled area, according to the source of light (Fig.10).

Fig. 10

Fig. 10

I also compared my image with the reference photo and found that it was coming along okay. I also checked it further with a horizontal flip. It's a good practice to check the sketch or painting by doing a horizontal flip to allow you to check for any volumetric distortion (Fig.11 - 12).

Fig. 11

Fig. 11

Fig. 12

Fig. 12

Step 05

Now I'll show how I smudged all the colors. Mostly I prefer Spatter brushes (Fig.13) for smudging or blending purposes. After selecting the brush, I selected the brush properties (F5) and adjusted the Scattering value, added some Other Dynamics and also Noise. Then in Scattering I adjusted Scatter to 46%, ticked Both Axes and set the Scatter Control to off, Count to 3, Count Jitter to 10% and the Count Jitter Control to Pen Pressure. Then I selected the Brush Tip Shape and just turned off Spacing. Now my Smudge brush is ready for use (Fig.14 - 16).

Fig. 13

Fig. 13

Fig. 14

Fig. 14

Fig. 15

Fig. 15

Fig. 16

Fig. 16

I used on basic colors of his face like this way. You can see examples of Fig.17.

Fig. 17

Fig. 17

I smudged all the colors of his face with dark and light colors. I decided which parts should be highlighted according to the source of light.



Step 06
In this stage I used the same layer and settings as before, but worked more precisely on further detailing this time. I used more colors on his face and worked on the detailing of the nose, mouth and eyes. I always tried to maintain the similarity with my reference pictures, and catch those minute special features which would make the image more of an accurate look-a-like.

Here I started adding details onto the eyes. At this point, I was trying to maintain a proper balance of dark and light colors (Fig.18).

Fig. 18

Fig. 18

Step 07

I finished detailing the face, trying to push realism in the skin, eyes, hair and cloths. The next step was the hair. Here I used a gray color, and enhanced the lighter and darker shades of gray in his hair using different types of curly lines according to the reference images. I used the same process for the beard (Fig.19).

Fig. 19

Fig. 19

Step 08

Now I painted on his skin. First I took a new layer for the skin texture and drew some small dots and curly lines (Fig.20). After completing some textures, I copied and pasted the same. Then I decreased the opacity of this layer, took the Stamp tool and used the texture over his head (Fig.20).

Fig. 20

Fig. 20

After that I used some bright light on his forehead and nose. Then I used a reference image for texturing purposes (Fig.21 - 22). I pit this image on a different layer and then placed it on top of the main painted layer (Fig.23).

Fig. 21

Fig. 21

Fig. 22

Fig. 22

Fig. 23

Fig. 23

I kept this texture on his lower face area, then selected this texture layer, selected Soft Light from layer properties and selected a layer opacity of around 25-30%. Then I selected the Eraser tool and the Airbrush Soft Round brush, and decreased some brush opacity from the top of the option bar (Fig.24). Then I lightly erased that texture on his head according to my requirements;, you can see how it was looking at this stage in Fig.25.

Fig. 24

Fig. 24

Fig. 25

Fig. 25

Here's the result after using textures with lights (Fig.26).

Fig. 26

Fig. 26

Step 09

Next I started working on his clothes. First I finished doing the lights and shades; then I saved this work as a new PSD file, using a different name for my convenience. I used Corel Painter for creating the texture of his blazer. I could have used the same process as I used for the skin texturing, but I prefer using Corel Painter to get a realistic look for clothes - it's just personal preference.

So in Painter I opened that PSD file and took a new layer. I created a custom texture from the reference image and used it as a paper. I opened the reference image and selected it as a square shape (Selection tool) and then went to Window > Library Palettes > Show Papers (Fig.27).

Fig. 27

Fig. 27

Then I clicked the right top of the corner in the paper's properties, selected Capture Paper, gave it a new name and saved it (Fig.28).

Fig. 28

Fig. 28

Then I used that paper on his blazer smoothly. This time I used brushes like Conte, Pastels and Chalk all over the blazer. You can see examples in Fig.29.

Fig. 29

Fig. 29

After that I overwrote that PSD file and reopened it in Photoshop. In Photoshop I erased all the unnecessary colors, which scattered outside. Then I created a new layer where I painted lighter and darker shades to complete the blazer areas and kept this layer below the previous one (where I kept the Corel Painter texture) (Fig.30).

Fig. 30

Fig. 30

Then, for the shirt, I used the same Pen Opacity Flow airbrush for the stripes (Fig.31 - 32).

Fig. 31

Fig. 31

Fig. 32

Fig. 32


After I painted all the stripes I used the Dodge Tool, or O, to add the shiny or glossy effect. Try decreasing the opacity to around 40-50% with Midtones when you using the Dodge tool (Fig.33). Then you can get good results (Fig.34).

Fig. 33

Fig. 33

Fig. 34

Fig. 34

Step 10

Next I started working on his skin texture and his earring. To make the dots on his skin, I used the Hard Round brush. I followed the reference image and placed the dots appropriately, painting them according to the size on the image. Those dots have got some light and shading as well; I minutely observed the dots in the image and followed their example. I used copy and paste and transformed these dots according to image (Fig.35).

Fig. 35

Fig. 35


While doing the earring, I used the Hard Round brush with a basic golden color, and after that I used dark and light shades as well as highlights. At this point the image was almost complete - it just needed a background (Fig.36).

Fig. 36

Fig. 36

Step 11


To create the background I started with a new layer that I would then place under all the other layers. In this layer I wanted to use cool and dark colors on the background to maintain the focus of the portrait. So first I used a dark, blackish green color. After that I added some light tones on the lower side and some dark tones on the upper side. Here I wanted to keep some rough tonal effects so I did very little smudging (Fig.37).

Fig. 37

Fig. 37

After I'd created the background, I painted some extra lights, darker tones and some extra wrinkles on his neck by using the Burn tool. And here's the final image (Fig.38).

Fig. 38 d_Fig-38

Fig. 38 d_Fig-38


I'm happy with my final result. I hope you all like it and that this Making Of has been useful to read. If you have any queries, you can always contact me through my email or blog.

Thanks for reading!

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