I have no idea what the final layout of this post will look like. I used Blogger 
settings that I waswarned away from by friends but which I had to try because my curiosity about them was eating me alive. If it all looks chaotic when it's published then I offer my apologies in advance.
Anyway here's some samples from Steve Worth's amazing caricature machine, which is actually a Mac laptop with a camera built in and with Mac Photobooth software installed. This is a $1500 package but that's probably peanuts to the filthy rich artists who frequent this blog. Just get your butler to pick one up next time he goes for a caviar run.
This program is amazing. It contains dozens of virtual lenses all of which distort the face in a different way. You just move your face around infront of the camera till you find a distortion you like then you click to save it.
I learned a lot about drawing by spending less than an hour with this machine. Look at the hand pictures...I never thought of drawing hands that way till I saw these snapshots! This is a great machine but it's going to put a lot of marker and pastel caricaturists out of business. If you do caricatures for a living then consider yourself warned!
My uncertainty about the final layout makes it impossible for me to assign names to the photos. The friends skewered here are: Steve Worth, Jon Trapnel, Marlo Meekins and myself. One more thing...um...I'm not as fat as I look standing behind Jon. That's a camera distortion. Just thought I'd mention that.
Thanks a million to Steve Worth for letting me use these pictures!
AMAZING! I see what you mean now- very inspiring.
ReplyDeletehahahahahhh all of these are funny! the steve ones are hilarious, the eddie fat hand ones, and the marlo that looks like arnold dressing up as a woman from total recall!!!! hahahahah this is great!
ReplyDeleteI have that on my laptop as well. But I never did all the crazy stuff you just did. Those are great. Marlo looks like Wynona Judd through that filter. (The sad part of course is that Ms. Judd looks like that in real life).
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely amazing! I was wondering from where I could learn to do proper caricatures!
ReplyDeleteUrm, regarding "peanuts to the filthy rich artists who frequent this blog" -- I guess I'm going to have to find another blog to haunt. Not sure I can pony up the cover charge for this one!
These are hideously beautiful images! This piece of software makes better caricatures than many professional artists. Really amazing distortions on all pictures... and Marlo reminds me of Saraghina from Federico Fellini's 8 1/2
ReplyDeleteTo see all the pictures we took, see...
ReplyDeletewww.flickr.com/photos/bigspum/sets/
See ya
Steve
This cool iMac camera software yields two hard facts: (1)Marlo absolutely belongs in a Fellini film and (2) Steve Brodner's career as a top NYC illustrator is now toast.
ReplyDeleteBwa ha ha ha ha ha ha! Those were really great! I love them! Eddie, the picture of you with Jon is actually a very good picture of you. You look good!
ReplyDeleteI couldn't get over how it completely transformed everyone, especially Marlo!
You can do the same things in photoshop! Go to filter> distort> and play with: pinch, sphereize, twirl, to just name a few.. Also, there is a filter called liquify that you can used for this kind of distortion.. Anyway I sound like a photoshop spokesman.. you can down load full versions of ps on certain sites for free. (not 1500 bones)
ReplyDeleteThe great thing about the coreduo FX built into MacOS is that these filters are real time, just like a funhouse mirror. You can move around and pose yourself at just the angle you want. You can even do live video chats using ichat with these real time filters.
ReplyDeleteSee ya
Steve
Oh crap! thats cool.. I thought you manipulated them after the fact.. Yeah sometimes i just read the post real quick and then spew out some nonsence.. Cool toy though.
ReplyDeleteThose are hilarious! I remember playing around with a similar program a long time back.
ReplyDeletePhotoshop 7 has a similar filter--damn, what's it called?--that's also a real-time squisher/stretcher/fisheye type thing, with presets and brushes you use to do your own horrendous deeds on those close to you.
ReplyDeleteWhen I showed it to my son, he said, "Let's scan a picture of Dad and make him look ugly!" Isn't that sweet?
Anyway, Marlo looks like a dead ringer for Barbara Rhoades of "The Shakiest Gun in the West" fame (opposite hunky Don Knotts, of course). I'm thinking she ought to get herself some goatskin chaps and set out to find Barney Fife's grave.
"And to think all this time I've been doing it the hard way!"
ReplyDeleteTHE HEN-PECKED DUCK (1941)
What that doodad did to Marlo is criminal... But holy crap! Steve, Eddie & Jon actually look better.
ReplyDeleteI notice you wouldn't step up to the plate and be caricatured bu the Miraculous machine, there, mike f. ; )
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, I was - but for some reason, Steve didn't post 'em. I guess it was just too gruesome.
ReplyDeleteCripes! Did you just send me a "winky face"? Man, that creeps me out. I hope you're female!
ReplyDeleteStep up to the plate yourself and sign your name, Popeye!
Ohhhh, come on Fontanelli--you know you love it! ; D ^-^
ReplyDeleteLOL!
SMEK!
Holy crap, it's a dude! [BLECCCH! Barrrrf! Raaaalph! Hock-Ptoooey!] :(
ReplyDeleteI'm going to buy a mac next month. What a great idea for an avatar!
ReplyDeleteHmm I love the idea behind this website, very unique.
ReplyDelete»
Oh man, those are funny - checked out the Flickr set too, Marlo actually looks like hr caricatures in those pics! Great stuff, you're right about the distortion throwing up 'poses' you'd never think of normally.
ReplyDelete