Animation Foundations: Drawing Cartoon Characters

Learn to draw cartoon characters for classical cel animation, digital animation, comic books, or just for fun.

Introduction

• Welcome
• Understanding the exercise handout: Print it out!

1. Basics Overview

• Body types, proportions, and construction
• Gesture and attitude drawings
• Thumbnails
• Composition and camera angles

2. Understanding Drawing for Animation

• Line of action/reversals
• Silhouette and negative space
• Counterpose/torque
• Exaggeration
• Squash and stretch: Understanding volume
• Straight vs. curves and parallels
• Breaks on curves
• Vary shapes, asymmetry, and texture
• Point of origin
• Open and closed areas
• Tangents
• Materials and drag
• Line weight

3. Drawing Body Parts: Detail

• Understanding anatomy
• An introduction to drawing eyes
• Eyelids, eye blinks, and eyebrows
• Drawing realistic eyes
• Drawing cartoony mouths
• Drawing realistic and stylized mouths
• Drawing the nose
• Drawing ears
• Adding details to build character in a drawing
• Drawing hands
• Drawing hands: Details, touching hands, and fine points
• Drawing hand styles
• Feet
• Hair and beards
• Drawing clothes and flowing materials
• Drawing animals
• Drawing creatures
• Drawing cartoon effects for animation
• Drawing objects

4. Bringing It All Together

• Bringing it all together

5. Full Drawing: From Start to Finish

• Starting with a rough construction
• Tie down
• Cleanup
• Troubleshooting and plussing
• Model sheet and turnaround
• Advice on drawing in different styles
• Adding color to your drawing

Conclusion

• Next steps