'The sweetest pakcik': Man sets up cardboard 'photo booth' at Haji Lane to make caricatures

A TikTok video of a man behind a cardboard 'photo booth' drawing cutesy caricatures of passers-by at Haji Lane has gone viral.

"POV: You got hand drawn photo strips at Haji Lane," read the caption for the clip, which had gained over 330,000 views and more than 150 comments at press time.

A $5 sign is displayed on the booth, alongside cutouts for the man to manually dispense the completed 'photo strips' and for customers to drop in their payment.

The TikToker who uploaded the video documented her experience at the booth, captioning it: "The sweetest pakcik for real".

'Different kind of caricature service'

The man behind the caricatures is Faizal Bin A Bakar, 58. The retiree was formerly a newspaper artist with The Straits Times, The New Paper and Today.

He told TNP that he wanted to offer a "different kind of caricature from the usual caricature service that was offered."

Noting his son's description of Haji Lane as "the place", Mr Faizal primarily sets up his booth there, but goes to Bugis Art Lane occasionally as well.

Each drawing takes about five minutes. "Everyone loves it," he said, adding that despite waiting in line for a while, customers are happy with the end product.

Mr Faizal said he had expected the caricature photo strips would be a "hit", but was surprised by their virality. "There was already a queue before the TikTok videos, but now it got longer. I also got tons of queries online," he said.

The booth will be a "regular thing", but not every day of the week, as he is currently working on collaborations with local businesses.

"I have other things planned, you just have to follow me to find out," said Mr Faizal.