Since launching Affiliate Doctors 15 months ago, a lot of people have asked where the artwork was commissioned for the caricatures.  Early in the site’s development, I asked each of the docs if they wouldn’t mind sending a photo through to feature in their profile and intro posts.  For various reasons though, the pics just didn’t look right when it came to knocking up the first design.  Everyone was doing something different, they were in different locations, under different lighting etc., and unless you’re using the same photographer to take everyone’s pic, they just don’t seem to work with a project like this.  So I biffed the idea of using pics, and decided to go for something a little different and got a caricature made for each of the docs instead.  On recommendation, I went with Caricature King (aff link *) which is run by Matt Eliason who is based in Australia and his team of artists from around the globe.

First things first, Matt is one of the most friendly and helpful people I’ve come across.  Customer service is A1, and at every stage of the process, he pulls out all the stops to make sure you get what you want.  I had a quick chat with Matt about commissioning 11 doc caricatures (with a 20% discount – nice notch!), and then fired over the pics to Matt so that artist, Brian, could get to work straight away.

So how does it all work?

Well you can order a number of different formats from head and shoulder shots to full body artwork.  Simply visit the site, select your preferred artist and pay online.  You then send Matt a photo and he gets the artist to knock up a rough pencil sketch to give an idea of what the full colour version will look like, and then gives you an opportunity to request any changes.  The pencil sketch can look a bit thin, but don’t worry, this is just to give you an idea.  Once you’re happy, the artist completes the full colour caricature in a matter of days (we had 11 remember).  When you have the final caricature, Matt checks again that everything is as you expect.  If not, he can ‘make it so’.

Here’s an example of the process for Kieron’s caricature (click images to enlarge):

The price?

At the time of writing, a head and shoulders caricature will set you back just €28.00/$39.99 USD/$48.50 AUD (about £25) with up to 25% on bulk orders.  Matt also runs his own in house caricature king affiliate scheme paying 10% commission on an average sale price of $115 AUD.

Since Affiliate Doctors started, a number of other affiliate’s have also used Matt’s services, and you can see another example over at Ray Theakston’s blog Befuddled.  Feeling old?  Well Matt’s team are so good in fact, that some of the people at the last Expo commented on how the artist did a brilliant job of rejuvenating some of the docs

Fancy a Free Caricature?

As a thanks to all AffiliateDocs readers, if you would like to win a ‘head and shoulders’ caricature of your own, all you need to do is become a fan of Affiliate Doctors on Facebook or leave a comment on here telling us why and what you’d use your caricature for.  One winner will be drawn at random at the end of the month!

* affiliate link – any money will go to the The PACE Centre Charity for Children with Motor Disabilities and Kiva Team Affiliate.