Comment by baddox
8 years ago
I don’t know if I agree with the distinction. Both require you to simplify the actual appearance down to something that will be recognizable. For a bicycle, that’s just a few circles and lines, but skilled artists can draw recognizable faces with the same simple elements.
If you're ten percent off with each bike line, it looks almost perfect. If you're ten percent off with each line while trying to draw a specific person, it won't even resemble them.
A caricature is one thing, and might be doable by an average person, but knowing how to do a caricature is a skill all by itself. A portrait is extremely art skill intensive.
I agree with that, but that’s just the difference between drawing a specific person versus drawing any bicycle. I suspect if you wanted to draw a bicycle that was recognizable as a specific type or brand of bicycle, small differences would be important.