cartoon drawing techniques definition

zufelt88732 April 20, 2023 Comment

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In this easy cartoon drawing tutorial, you'll learn how to draw cartoon characters. A good cartoonist is one who can extract the main details of an object or a human being and represent them with simple shapes. The goal is that a child can recognize the drawing and be attracted to what they're looking at.

Children are the main audience for cartoons. Masters like Walt Disney, Hanna & Barbera, Chuck Jones, Jim Henson, Walter Lantz and many others have enchanted the world with their magical and eternal characters.

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My role here is to help you understand the proper way to assemble this puzzle. I'll teach you how to draw characters from the techniques presented. I guarantee you'll be shocked at how easy it is to create a cartoon expression that children (and adults) will adore.

To get some inspiration, have a look at the hundreds of character s on Envato Elements, where you'll find many easy characters to draw. Or for a shortcut, try a character creation kit.

Before jumping into cartoon face drawing, we'll talk about the basics of human perception. Human beings have a very interesting feature: we can synthesize the details that make up a structure or an object in very complex ways into very basic and simple ones. In this way, we can represent any type of thing through a few curves and geometric shapes.

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What happens is that, unlike artists, most people can't tell from memory all the details that make up a car, a dog, or even a child. So they start to associate very basic and primitive shapes with the specific characteristics of each object. How many children of 4, 5, or 6 years old came from school with a drawing of two circles and some toothpicks on a piece of paper and said: "That's mommy and daddy!"?

Let's start with cartoon face drawing. The basic cartoon shape is a circle. Circle Is All You Need (besides Love, of course). It's from the circle that you define the basic proportions of your character's head. You can try some variety and also draw an oval head cartoon shape.

Once you have the circle or your oval head cartoon ready, it's time to trace the face axis. Draw a vertical and horizontal line intersecting at the center, like in the image below:

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Let's learn how to draw cartoon eyes. To make the eyes, draw an oval shape with a slight tilt to the side at the top. Repeat on the opposite side. It is important to leave a gap between them of approximately the same size as an eye. As we are in the drafting phase, you can draw another eye in the center to serve as a measure.

At the top of the circle, slightly thicken the trait that will be the eyelashes of our character. Place the eyebrows a bit above the eyelashes to create a surprised expression. The eyebrow form is free, and with practice you will adjust to your own style.

Draw both pupils directed to the center (this is a very effective tactic used by major cartoonists whose sole purpose is to make our characters look cuter).

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Tip: To give more life and "realism" to our eyes, you can draw a small line below them to simulate a kind of wrinkle. This is another very interesting tactic that adds a special touch to our facial expressions.

We've arrived at the most creative freedom of the whole course. Think of it this way: in cartoon style s, the main structure of a face is the skull and the eyes of the character. It is at that stage where you define the identification with the external world, i.e. it's already clear to people that you're drawing a character.

Now that we come to the jaw, we will decide if we want a fat character or a thin one. They could be old, young, and so on. My character will be a young one. So let's a proper jaw for him.

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When ing a nose being seen from the front, it's common not to use many details. If you draw only its tip, it is likely that already achieves a convincing effect. It is also very common to draw only one side of the nose, from the idea that this is the opposite side of the light.

Notice that when drawing a little child's mouth, the lips shouldn't be drawn. In cartoon style, children, regardless of gender, have quite simple mouths. A good and expressive cartoon trace already does the job.

Cartoon ears are easy to do. These can be seen from the front character side view (because our character is facing the camera), so that the internal cavities will not appear. Then we will do just a simple shape using some basic perspective (more on that later).

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The shape of our skull is already defined by the circle we did at the beginning, right? So we just need a very simple and childish haircut to give life to our boy. Let's do it now. Now you have your basic cartoon trace.

Easy, easy... there's nothing to fear. You don't need to be a stylist or fashion er to make perfect hair. There isn't a right way to draw hair, so you'll need to try until you create the ideal haircut you want. Just remember that the hair is responsible for defining the personality of our characters. Oddly enough, the hair can express age, rebellion, conservatism... incredible, isn't it? Speaking of which... what is your hairstyle?! Oh, never mind...

An accurate and fast way of drawing cartoon hair is to seek photos or even cartoon character references on the web. I do this all the time: grab a fashion magazine or try a Google search. After finding the ideal style, put the image as a reference next to your drawing board (or tablet) and start making a simplified cartoon version of it.

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Now let's play with cartoon drawing ideas and create a completely different character with the same template we used for little Tommy (yes, I created a name for him).

Here are some more cool cartoon characters to draw. Older characters can be easy cartoon drawings. As usual, let's start with the eyes. This time we will draw faster, adding wrinkles, eyebrows, and the eye pupils.

Notice that we haven't changed a lot; we just expanded the eyebrow a bit. Older men have thicker eyebrows, occupying more space on the forehead. Eyelashes make no difference in men; they are always drawn in the same way.

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We will increase our chin cartoon a bit this time. Try something like this. Our character already has a different "look"! This is very good. We will proceed by choosing the ideal nose for him.

Notice that the ends of the nose are positioned very close to the bottom of the eyes. This is an effective technique to use when ing larger and wider noses. The idea is always to exaggerate to get a good result.

I decided to use another technique now: instead of drawing the mouth, we'll simply draw a big mustache to create a better persona for our character.

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We've just added some side hair and left him bald on top. Amazing how it creates a totally different look, isn't it? Also notice that I took the same ear from Tommy, our beloved boy. That's the advantage of working on templates. That's the magic of cartoon!

Let's try some more easy cartoon drawings. I don't know... I think Tommy needs a sister! He's been very lonely out there. Let's create a sister for him now, as if by magic:

That's it. These are all the changes you need to make. Besides that, I took everything I could from Tommy, her brother. After all, they are siblings, right?

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When you start to feel more comfortable, you can slowly create some more "realistic" details for your characters. Such as larger pupils...

When thinking about cartoon characters to draw, emotions and facial expressions should come to mind. We're now ready to add more emotions to our dear Lucy (yes, that's her name). Let's draw her after receiving the news that the school holidays have come to an end...

Again, we achieve something totally different just by adding two things: the tears and the new shape of her mouth. Isn't it amazing?

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And that's it! We got the expected result with just these few changes. The hair, ears, nose, the circular shape of the eyes and the chin cartoon are the same. Simple as that!

Looking for more easy cartoon characters to draw? Here are some more cartoon drawing ideas. Draw the template below again. Now we'll learn how to make Tommy and Lucy from the profile view:

Be aware of the main differences in structure when comparing them side by side. Pay attention to these details when drawing male and female characters: