Salvador Navarro

Caricature Mobile Art

Taylor Swift

BY SALVADOR NAVARRO

Artist

California, USA

Salvador Navarro, a self-taught caricature artist, has always loved to draw, but for some strange reason always felt inclined to do this particular type of portrait. Here he takes us through the steps to his obvious success.

In the app “Brushes”, on a clean layer, I start by jotting down the general location and shapes of the subject, using the pencil tool at very low opacity. Save the result to the camera roll.

I open the sketch in the app “Sketch-Book Mobile”, which allows me to transform or rotate this layer as needed to fit all the features I want to include. I use this app just to transform the layer, save it to the camera roll, and open it up in the app “Brushes”. Once the proportions feel right, I lower the opacity of the layer to 20 percent and create a new layer on top to refine the pencil drawing. I’m trying to capture as much detail as necessary before I begin to paint. I start to get a feel for the values and colors using a wide translucent brush, adding some base color for the next step.

To add color to this layer, I start with a wide, opaque brush and choose a medium tone for the skin. It’s easier to add highlights and shadows later. I do the same for the hair, eyes, and other features.

I continue building up the blocks of color, then switch to the airbrush tool and, using a large, very low opacity brush, start applying layers of the colors that are already on the canvas that I sample using the eyedropper tool.

I open the last saved version from “Brushes” back into “SketchBook Mobile” to transform the layer and create some space around the face to add much more hair. Save it to the camera roll and open it for the last time in “Brushes”.

I continue this process using the airbrush tool, smoothing and blending the previously applied rough strokes. Now I'm choosing colors that are going to increase the impact of the final image, in this case the reds and golds, and place them subtly in key spots, sometimes switching between layers. It is this constant back and forth observation between my reference and my device that allows me to capture the slightest variations.

I decide to add a dark background to make the hair pop, so we just add a new layer and fill it with a reddish brown.

I move on to my least favorite part, the hair, which includes eyebrows and eyelashes done with the smallest brush. Create a new layer for this purpose and handle it the same way as the skin, painting with subtle variations in color, but at a high opacity.

I finish the painting by choosing a spot for my signature, always on a separate layer in case it needs revision.

If I’m working in “Brushes” I export the image to “SketchBook Mobile”, and after saving it to the gallery, email it to myself. This way, I can open it in “Photoshop” on my Mac and do a little tweaking of contrast and color saturation before printing … nothing major … but the images look a lot better on the iPod Touch screen than they do on the computer monitor, so I adjust the image to make it as close as possible to the original file.