The 10 Minute Epiphany...

I've been getting very annoyed at myself this weekend, with my caricature work.  I didn't seem to be able to get a good likeness done, and what I was doing was taking forever.  After looking at the caricature tutorials again, I had an epiphany...  I was taking too long. It was taking me over 40 minutes to get to a stage where the drawing looked something like the subject.  To get better, I have to do more caricatures, and that means getting faster...

The answer?  Simplify, and go back to basics.

Take a good look at the subject, but concentrate on the shapes that I see.  Once I have the shapes in my head, I give myself 10 minutes to capture the best likeness I can with a blue pencil.  Like this...

As you can see, I've got a reasonable likeness of Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) and Blofelt (Donald Pleasance) - both of which I'll ink over at some stage and produce a finished colouy version.  The 10 minute limit forces me to get the basic shapes right first - once that's right, the rest is easy.