Gouache Caricature from a Photo

Use the provided photo as reference: ${reference-photo}

Convert the photo into a hand-painted gouache illustration on cream cotton paper. Treat this as character design, not portraiture. Use flat, opaque color with 2–3 tones per surface, confident economical contours, visible paper tooth, and slight pigment granulation. Prioritize bold shapes over detail. Avoid photographic skin, pores, lens blur, 3D shading, and rendered realism.

Redraw the person with stylized proportions: a larger head (roughly one-sixth of the figure), enlarged graphic eyes, a nose and mouth reduced to simple marks, simplified hands, and clothing built from large, readable masses. Make every surface shape-first and texture-second.

Work like a caricaturist. Identify 2–3 traits that make this person’s face unmistakable—such as glasses, hair, jaw, brow, nose profile, eyes, or facial hair—and push them beyond life. Preserve their eye spacing, forehead-to-nose-to-chin ratio, jaw width, hairline, age, build, and natural asymmetry. Do not smooth, beautify, slim, symmetrize, de-age, or replace the face with a generic or anime face. Someone who knows the person should recognize them instantly.

Use a narrow but strong palette: fresh sage-to-olive green, clean rose pink, and warm cream paper. Green and pink must carry equal weight in the frame. Push value contrast with deep greens against pale pinks and bare cream. Do not desaturate, gray down, or wash out the colors. Use no colors outside these three families; exclude primaries, black, brown, blue sky, and rainbow colors.

Read the photo’s energy and attitude, then invent a persona and push it until it feels funny, sharp, or absurd. Give the person a prop or gesture that tells a story. The register is punk irreverence in a sweet medium. Show attitude in the eyes, never a polite smile.

Pose: waist-up, large in the frame, and full of attitude—for example, arms crossed, a raised hand, leaning, or brandishing something. Never use passive, square-shouldered posing.

Wardrobe: retain the clothing from the photo, including the same garments, cut, and layers. Rebuild it in a flat painted language using the palette above. Simplify the folds; do not restyle the clothing.

World: add a background and a few oversized objects that push the joke. Use big, simple shapes, flat color, no clutter, and generous cream paper. Keep everything quieter in value than the head.

Craft: subtle paper grain, uneven wash edges, occasional pigment pooling, and a soft border.

Avoid: realistic proportions; a painted-photo look; softened features; passive posing; decorative filler; desaturated color; one color dominating; text or logos; photographic skin; 3D, CGI, or plastic shading; an anime face; symmetrical beauty; an unrecognizable face; and a busy composition.

The result must clearly be this exact person and clearly be a drawing.