1. Introduce yourself.
My name is David, better known online as Loopydave. I’m a freelance illustrator living and working in an underground lair somewhere in the southern part of Australia.
2. I am a huge fan of your works! From how long have you been doing caricatures?
I guess the easy answer is that I can’t remember when I wasn’t drawing and drawing faces in particular. First, I drew portraits and cartoons of people and then, as I played around with features, they would become more caricature like.
One of the earliest caricatures I remember drawing as a kid was of my younger sister and I gave her enormous ears… something she was rather upset about and didn’t talk to me for a week. Be careful how you draw people I guess 😀
3. Your animal caricatures are just too good! They bring a smile to the face. Can you share us something about them? How do you get the inspiration to create such cool art?
Animals are fun and fascinating but, for me, the closer I follows a photo or reference the less I feel I am bringing to the picture. Thus I like to play with exaggeration and interesting shapes to bring a bit more character and more of my touch to a picture, if that makes sense.
Humor played a big part of my childhood – bad puns, funny books etc and a lot of my inspiration comes from simply finding something that is absurd or amuses me.
4. I see that you create gags too! Can you share with us a quick sketch/gag of the recent corona-virus ?
I like to find the fun in most things I do – even in this horrible corona-virus thing.. so here’s something I did early on in the piece but never posted it anywhere. Exclusive!
5. Can you show us your favorite works from your gallery? All your works are so amazing that I am finding it difficult to choose your best works! Any special reason you created them?
Impossible to really pick favorites, but these ones have some meaning to me I guess…
Albert Einstein – pencil sketch. Drawing with pencils is still my favorite medium and this was as fun face to play with.
Card Game. This one involved movies, creature design and silliness – all things I love… and took around 2 full weeks to paint so I have a soft spot for it.
Croc playing piano. I’m a bit fascinated by crocodiles and this was a fun idea to play with.
Terry Pratchett. One of my favourite authors, so it was nice to do a tribute piece to him.
Three birds. Random fun… something I like to do with my art!
6. How long does it take to create a caricature? From the sketching to the finishing? Do you work on multiple projects?
Hard to answer that one as it varies how long it takes. I used to draw the faces of people I saw on the train and that helped me to be able to capture something pretty quickly. Other times getting the feature just right may take a few tries… and doing a fully painted image clearly takes even longer.
Yes, I usually have multiple personal projects running simultaneously as well as the commercial jobs I have… my brain is always coming up with new ideas and things to do, so I have to do my best to keep up with it 😀
7. Your caricatures are so nice that the beginner artists would love to buy a book in any form. Do you have any plans to write and publish a book in the future?
Funny you should ask…21 Draw asked me to write a chapter in their ‘The Character Designer’ book on drawing caricatures so if that interests you, look up the book and you can read all about it 😀
I also have an art book called ‘No need to get Silly: The Art of Loopydave’ out there somewhere (some amazon sites still have it I think) and I’m currently working on a humorous graphic Novel at the moment.
8. What software do you use? Do you create the sketch on paper or do you work directly on the computer?
Got a Wacom One recently, so have been playing with drawing directly in Photoshop, but until this point I would always start with paper and scan the art to color on the computer.
I still like to do complete sketches on paper and usually ink on paper too.
9. Anything else you would like to share with the readers? Any tips?
Stay safe and well… and its so easy to focus on all the negative things but finding the good and fun where you can I find, is much better for you.
And don’t run with scissors.
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