Cartoon Figure Drawing & Anatomy
Whenever you hear 'figure drawing' or 'anatomy' the first thing that usually comes to mind - with respect to art, is sketching realistic human representations - based on real models and/or photographs.
Cartoon-wise though, keeping the essence of 'simplicity' in mind - drawing the figure and anatomical parts of a character, maybe like the ones you'll find here one the site -- is a slightly different ball game.
How is it different? Good question! :-)
Drawing cartoons, you gradually come to realize that there's more freedom with respect to the various structural & proportional aspects involved.
Whether your character/animal/monster, etc.!! is more or less simplified - or more or less exaggerated, there really is an infinite number of ways to tackle the shape and stance of the body, along with the various parts which compose it.
A quick look to the right, and you've got a cartoony homage to Leonardo Da Vinci's 'Vitruvian Man'. And nope - not even close to the perfect/to scale representation of a human in his version... instead - it's the complete opposite - simple, cartoony, fun!
And so, let's keep this train of thought in mind when tackling (and for me - creating!) the lessons in this area of the site. Bodies, eyes, ears mouth and nose - let's take a look at some really simple-yet-diverse & unique ways to go about developing our cartoon characters.
That said - pick one of the lessons from the list below to begin!
How to Draw EyesHere, let's take a look at drawing some simple cartoon eyes - ones you can change to your liking.
Recommended Drawing Resources
To further your learning and improvement, check out the following resources...
- Learn how to draw caricatures with Graeme Biddle.
- Discover how to use photoshop in a day. Makes everything so much simpler.
- Check out Chad Baldwin's digital painting techniques.
