1930's Character Design: Illustrate Iconic Characters

Learn how to create original characters in the style of 1930s cartoons. Pie eyes, rubber hose limbs, white gloves, sausage fingers, and everything else. Think early Mickey Mouse, Popeye, Betty Boop, or of course, the hit video game Cuphead. Learn everything you need to know to create your very own 1930s characters!

I'll start with a brief history of animation in the 1900-1930s to help explain why these characters looked the way they did. Then, armed with this knowledge, I will walk you through drawing individual elements like eyes (pie eyes), gloves, and mouths, so you can start creating your own unique characters.

I'll also break down my design decisions on my 3 characters shown in the class.

The class project is to choose an intimate object or animal, and turn them into a character! From there, you can take a companion class by Jake Bartlett called "1930's Character Animation" and learn how to animate the character you made in this class!

See you in class!

- Jon

• Class Intro
• Enamel Pin Contest
• A Brief History of Animation
• The Amazing Fleischer Studios
• Anthropomorphism & Your Project
• Drawing Pie Eyes
• Creating Mr.Liquor
• Drawing Mouths
• Creating Money Bags
• Drawing White Gloves
• Background Design Inspiration
• Creating My Guitar Character
• Put It all Together
• Outro
• ClassPromo
• A Message From Future Jon