AS A SCHOOLBOY, Terry Pontikos was prone to doodling. The doodles then became caricatures of his schoolmates and teachers in his native Australia, when he realised the popularity mileage he could exploit from them.
When he entered high school, his art turned from hobby to passion and something he wanted to do as a career. Against his father's wishes, Pontikos didn't go on to university and a safe career in a bank 'that would have equalled death for me', but, instead, opted to join a tabloid newspaper in Sydney, where he could learn from his heroes, whose caricatures and cartoons he'd admired from afar.
Today, at 35, Pontikos is the South China Morning Post's caricaturist and his takes on the famous and infamous are in the paper on a regular basis.
Sometimes he's quite nice to his subjects, other times - he's not. Foreheads and noses are stretched, pock marks and wrinkles emphasised, ears widened, politicians embarrassed.
This week, Pontikos' work is on show at The Newsmakers exhibition at the Rotunda in Exchange Square, Central. In time for the WTO meeting, 12 caricatures of the makers and shakers of regional and world politics and economics can be seen in all their glory or ignominy.
'My father was a good artist and draughtsman, so if things are genetic then I get it from him,' Pontikos says. 'But I come from a classic migrant family where he had to support the family, so his art came second. He resisted all my mother's entreaties to do more illustration work. With his background, he just didn't see it as responsible. To that end he was disappointed I didn't go to college.'