Biden my time...

I'm taking my time with my Joe Biden caricature. When I first heard he was the Veep pick, my first thought was "Oh great, another white-haired, white-bread, white guy to struggle with." But as I started to draw him (as usual) I started to find things in his face that I liked, and began to discover a road map across the contours that told a story. A cartoonist I know once gave me some very sage advice in terms of caricature. He said, "You'll know you've got it when the caricature starts to talk back to you." That probably sounds weird, but it's true. Here are my first, and latest attempts at Biden. I told myself that I was going to post every sketch, no matter how lame. So here they are - warts and all. I'm not there yet, but I think a couple of these are starting to talk to me.

I've made some notes to myself in the margins. This helps me to go back and reference thoughts I have about his face as I'm drawing him. I also need to draw him while he's talking on TV. This helps to get a more "full" or 3-D vision of his head shape and mannerisms.