How to Create and Draw a Cartoon Character - I tried My Hands at Cartooning!

One of my 2015 new year resolutions - learn how to draw!

I cannot draw to save my life! There is not a shred of artistic talent in me and have never been interested in drawing either.

Being retired does have its advantage - having more leisure time than I used to, I can afford to choose the things that I love to do.

 Thinking of my New Year resolutions for 2015, I vowed to expand my horizon, come out of my comfort zone and learn something I have never tried again.

An art workshop - St. Paul L'Amoreaux Centre, Scarborough

The first thing we tried in 2015 was drawing!

We went to an art workshop, listened to a short lecture and tried our hands at drawing!

Learning about perspective drawing

We learned in a nutshell that there are three types of drawings:

1. Representational Drawing
2. Perspective Drawings
3. Cartooning

Gavin, our art workshop lecturer

Gavin, a professional artist, and our workshop presenter asked us to have a vote on which type of drawings we wanted to try in this workshop.

We voted for trying our hands on cartooning. Gavin demonstrated and taught us the steps to creating and drawing our own cartoon characters:

Cartooning - all you need are a pencil and a piece of paper

Step 1:

Starting with a pencil and a piece of art paper,  draw any ten shapes on paper making them as interesting as possible.

Step 1 in Cartooning - Draw ten interesting shapes

Step 2:

Add the eyes, nose and mouth for each shape. Avoid placing them symmetrically on the shape.

Group eyes and nose together, then add mouth

But instead, group the eyes and the nose together while the mouth can be a little further down on the shape.

 Be creative!  Use different shapes of eyes, noses and mouths. The goal is to create interesting looking cartoon faces.





Step 3:

Add eyebrows and hair. Eye brows give character to the face depending on the shape, size and position of the eye brows.

My completed cartoon characters!

One of Stan's cartoon drawings

Step 4:

Draw three shapes for the body, keeping in mind that there should be:

1 large shape
1 medium shape
1 small shape

My very first cartoon character!

We followed the suggestions from our instructor, added eyes, nose, ears and then the body shapes.

Viola!

Here are my completed cartoon drawings!

I have never drawn in my life or was able to produce anything like these.

We enjoyed the art workshop and loved the cartooning characters we developed!

R.T.
St. Paul L'Amoroux Centre
Toronto