Pet Caricature

About the Caricature Style

Caricature turns your pet into the star of a boardwalk caricature booth. Your pet gets a hugely oversized head sitting on a tiny, cute cartoon body, upright and a little proud, drawn with clean ink outlines, bright smooth color and soft shading. It is a pet caricature made from your photo, and the whole idea is to take what already makes your pet funny to look at and turn the volume up.

The exaggeration is gentle and it follows your pet. Big ears get bigger, a long snout gets longer, a fluffy coat gets fluffier, a squished face gets squishier. A basset hound ends up with ears that nearly sweep the floor, a corgi with a grin-shaped head wider than its whole body, a Persian with a cloud of fur around a tiny nose. What does not change is everything that makes the face yours: the eye color and shape, the proportions of the face, the fur colors and every marking come from your photo, so the dog caricature or cat caricature still reads as your own pet at a glance.

The expression stays true too. If your pet's mouth is closed in the photo, it is closed in the caricature, and an open mouth stays open. We do not add a smile or a tongue that was not there, so a grumpy cat stays gloriously grumpy. Collars, harnesses and tags in the photo are left out, which keeps the picture clean and cartoonish.

Behind your pet is a solid, soft background color picked to suit the fur: a soft blue, mint, peach, lavender or sand. If you give a name, it runs across the top in a bold, fun, rounded cartoon title font, like the header of a comic or a party sign. Because the body is drawn new, any pose in your photo works. A pet lying flat on the carpet still comes back sitting up like a tiny mascot, and you can even upload a plain headshot.

Caricature is a cheerful way to turn a caricature from a photo into something to hang up. It suits the kitchen, the office and the kids' rooms, and it makes a funny gift for a friend whose pet is a local celebrity. If you would rather keep the cuteness and lose the exaggeration, try 3D Animated or Vector Look.

Best for

• Pets with a standout feature, such as huge ears, a long snout, jowls or a cloud of fur
• Dogs and cats with big personalities that friends already joke about
• Funny birthday, housewarming and office gifts for someone who adores their pet
• Families who want a playful picture for a kitchen, hallway or kid's room
• Anyone who wants a cartoon with more character than a standard cute one

Lovely in these spaces

• A kitchen or dining nook where a cheerful picture fits
• A home office or a desk wall that could use a laugh
• A kid's bedroom or playroom

Think twice if

Caricature exaggerates on purpose, so the head is much bigger than the body and your pet's best-known feature is pushed further. If you want a faithful, true-to-life likeness with no comic stretching, a painted style will suit you better.

More Caricature ideas

• Pet Caricatures