Final Update on 'Ongoing Project'

The reason as to why I haven't been continuously updating my blog about the ongoing project is because I was unfortunately unable to keep to my plan of producing a caricature a day in the style of the Simpsons, due to the time that each drawing takes me. I am devastated that I didn't pick a more manageable daily task, therefore resulting in a larger scale, though most likely less polished end piece. This process has taught me to think through a project such as this to see if it would have been manageable along with all the other work I have been set.

Though I am pleased to report that this isn't to only learning that I have taken during this topic, as comparing my first attempts at Simpsons caricatures to my latest shows clear progression, and I have learnt a lot about the design behind the Simpsons characters, a lot of which has been gained through criticism on my 'Simpsons Celebrity Caricatures' page on Facebook, which has also grown exponentially in scale and popularity thanks to this project.

Below is an example of an early attempt compared to a much more recent attempt. I picked these two as they have a similar violent premise. The one on the left includes Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson from the BBC comedy 'Bottom', and the one on the left is Basil Fawlty and Manuel from another BBC comedy, 'Fawlty Towers'. The accuracy of the body postures has clearly improved, as the body on Rik especially seems very wavy and inaccurate, which isn't what 'The Simpsons' drawings aim for, whereas the more recent drawing shows a much more representational though still cartoony design. Speaking of cartoony, the expressions are also now more reminiscent of the cartoony expressive designs of the Simpsons. The expression on Ade in the left picture was simply traced over an already excising Simpsons screenshot, therefore limiting the ability for others to recognise who the caricature is, whereas on the more recent drawing, I have simply adopted certain quirks of Simpson expressions and combined them with a much more recognisable and appealing caricature. Other things I have noted on improving are use of shading and body proportions.

(Left) Old drawing of Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson (Right) Recent drawing of Basil Fawlty and Manuel

One of my proudest achievements during this topic, was my drawings of the two main characters in each film from my favorite film trilogy, the 'Cornetto' trilogy.

The 'Cornetto' trilogy Simpsons Caricatures

I am incredibly impressed with the growth of my Facebook page, and I know that without this project, this page would have never got to this scale and would likely have been discarded and forgotten about. I will continue to add to this page in my spare time, as this project has shown me how rewarding and helpful running this page can become. Below I have included a current screenshot of the Facebook page, with it amassing nearly 3k followers, which as shown on the graph also included below, has grown from the 1359 followers that I had when I started this project back on the 17th November, meaning I've more than doubled my audience.

Screenshot of the 'Simpsons Celebrity Caricatures' page on Facebook

Graph showing the growth of followers on my page

As for actually presenting all my caricatures, I didn't want to stick them in a sketchbook, because due to the fact that they were all produced digitally, I was able to group them together in one big illustration, unifying all my work through this project into one, large scale product. This will also be more entertaining for people to spot out any people they can recognise, as with a lack of names accompanying each character, it will be only the drawings themselves which communicate who they are. As I stated in a previous 'ongoing project' update, I have also included two characters from 'The Simpsons' in an alternate style, providing a 'Where's Wally' type effect. I printed the final illustration on an A1 sized foam-board, in order to present it at a large scale and gain a full view of each drawing. After getting over my initial disappointment of not keeping up daily with this project, I am still impressed with the outcome, as it shows a clear progression in style, accuracy and management.

The final digital product

The final printed product