Coloring Caricatures

[JookBoxer]

What is the fastest most effective way to color in caricature sketches with real world mediums. (non digital) What medium is best?

[MephistoLV]

I can't make any definitive statements about "fastest" or "best", but I can say that almost all of the caricature artists I have seen working at parties, theme parks, and carnivals do the drawing with markers and the coloring with medium to hard chalk pastels.

[JookBoxer]

Interesting. I've heard some people use prisma color art stix. Is there a difference between art stix and hard chalk pastels? Would the artist have to worry about the chalk coming off over time?

this guy seems to be using some kind of sticks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs6xppFJV58

[Favila]

most caricature artists i've seen on the street (barcelona, madrid, florence, rome) used charcoal, and those who did it in color used pastels

[MephistoLV]

Cool video. It's hard to tell from that what exactly he was using. It could have been the art stix, but it could have also been the Prismacolor NuPastels, which look identical to the art stix.

I had one of those done of myself at the San Diego Zoo a few years ago, and I remember that I had to pick up the drawing later in the day because the artist needed to spray fix it (because she had used pastels).

At any rate, I can see why some people would want to use the art stix. Definitely less mess and no need to use fixative. The only disadvantage would be that you couldn't get smooth blending effects with them quickly like you could with the pastels.

Oh, btw, I forgot to mention: the art stix are just thick woodless colored pencils. That is the difference between them and pastels.

[JookBoxer]

I'm trying to use pastels at the moment but they are a bit of a mess. I do get better blending effects but the chalkiness is anoying. I think I'll give the art sticks a try. I wonder how many colors I should get. Probably not easy to mix right?