Caricature is an illustration of a person or a subject that uses a way of exaggerating the most distinguishable characteristic traits and simplifying the common features in order to magnify the unique features of the subject. Recently, automatic caricature generation has become a research area due to the advantageous features of amusement in the fields such as network, communications, online games, and the animation industry. The aim of this study is to present a perceptual caricaturization approach practicing the concept of exaggeration, which is very common in traditional art and caricature, on 3D mesh models synthesizing the idea of mesh saliency. © 2013 Springer-Verlag London.