Cartoon Eye Formulas

Eyes come in all types of shape and sizes. In this section I'm going to be talking about a few specific types eyes and what they're made up of.

These eyes will be:

However before we begin,  just as having knowledge of drawing real heads helps your head drawing, having real knowledge of how real eyes work, will help your cartoon eye drawing. Especially the more naturalistic your cartoon characters are.

When drawing cartoon eyes, there are four things about realistic eyes to keep in mind:

Some of these things may seem like common sense, but more often than not, when drawing cartoon eyes, they're ignored. This makes eyes look a bit odd.

Let's quickly take a look at why these things are good to know:

1. Eyes are spheres - This is, of course, the most common sense of all the things, yet when drawing eyes, most of  us tend to draw flat stickers for eyes instead of spheres inserted in the head.
2. The eyelids have an origin - In many cartoon eyes, the lids tend to often appear out of no where. Yet in reality, they have specific origins from which they pivot to open and close.  The average eye's lid origins tend to line up. In cartoon eyes, you can vary the angle these origins have to each other in order to add variety. I'll show you more about this later.
3. Eyelids wrap around the sphere - Another thing that can make or break the look of a cartoon eye is how the lids interact with the sphere of the eyes.  Unless you're Garfield the cat, you want eyelids to wrap around the eyeball to add dimension to your eyes.
4. Eyelids have thickness - Eyelids are not painted on the sphere of the eye, they have depth. They even cast a shadow on the eyes more often than not.  It's another way to add depth and dimension to your cartoon eyes.

Keeping these four things in mind, let's see how we can best use this info when drawing our cartoon eyes.

Dot Eye

Dot eyes are not only the easiest type of eyes to draw, they also happen to be my favorite. I suppose the simplicity is what appeals to me most.

By "dot eyes," I don't only literally mean eyes that are dots but also longer elliptical shaped eyes. I would even include lines for eyes, either vertical or horizontally drawn:

Dot eyes can easily be expressive by simply adding lines connected to them, around them or eyebrows above them:

However, one of the trickiest things to do with them is make them seem like they're looking in specific directions. You can often get around this by turning the whole head to look in the desired direction.

Still, sometimes you don't want to do this.  This is when knowledge about how real eyes work comes in handy. Even when drawing dot eyes.

Dot eyes can represent pretty much every part of the eyes: the whole eye, the irises or the just the pupils. When you want to make dot eyes look in a specific direction, it comes in handy to make them temporarily represent the iris or pupils.

By doing so, you can bend the dots in such a way to make them seem to look in a specific direction. Like this:

It also helps with dot eyes if you're aware of the solidity of the shape of the head. It's best if you place the eyes in such a way that they emphasize the structure, direction and perspective of the head:

That's it, that's all I really have to say about dot eyes.  Have fun drawing them.

Bubble Eyes

Bubble eyes are really one step up from dot eyes.  They were the first kind of cartoon eyes that I started using when I was a kid.

You can draw them two ways. You can draw them overlapping each other or you can draw them apart from each other. They also don't necessarily need to be perfectly round:

When you use overlapping bubble eyes they immediately give the viewer the sense that the eyes have volume.  They tend to seem spherical.

However, they also have a tendency to seem like they're bulging out of the head.  This is not a bad thing, just as long as you want that effect in your cartoon.

This is not necessarily the case if you separate the bubble eyes from each other.  It's possible with separated bubble eyes to not have them seem like bubbles at all, but rather spherical disks inside the head. Which is fine, if that's what want.

Here's somethings to keep in mind:

When drawing overlapping bubble eyes, have the overlap happen in the correct perspective.  The eye closes to us should overlap the eye further from us:

This may seem like common sense but I've seen plenty of people, including myself as a kid, get it wrong:

Also remember that eyelids should have an origin point from which they pivot. The eyelids, ideally should wrap around and reinforce the roundness of the bubble eyes.  UNLESS, you're trying to create a flat graphic look to your cartoons on purpose.

You should also try to avoid splitting the eye in half with your eyelids origins points.  It's best to error favoring a lower origin for the lids.  Why? Well, besides being good design, it's much more natural since our own eyes are not evenly split in half by our own eyelids and also favor a lower pivot point:

Eyelid thickness is often used with these kind of eyes too.  Experiment to see whether you want to include the thickness or not.  It give the eyes even more dimension:

Below you'll find a turnaround of how a version of these set of eye may look like from different angles.  This example is NOT the dogmatic, definitive way these eyes MUST be drawn.  They're simply a version you can use that you can then modify to suit your whims.

For example, the eyes below are very different than the bubble eyes used on a show likeThe Simpsons:

I think that covers it. Play around with the eyes and enjoy.

Freddy Moore Eyes

Okay, here's where thing start getting a bit more naturalistic.  Freddy Moore has had a big influence in the animation industry.  His way of drawing eyes are almost industry standard IF you're going for a Disney or Looney Tunes type look to your cartoons.

Freddy Moore's eye style has become more naturalistic than it started out being. It's based far more on reality than the previous eye types. This means that knowing how to draw a realistic eye is more helpful when drawing this type of eye.

So let's take a look at the two types of Freddy Moore eyes. The Looney Tunes eye and the Disney eye:

By the way, the examples shown here are by no means the definitive version of these eyes.  They're just one sample of what can be done based on the framework I will talk about below.  There's infinite design possibilities within the basic framework of this eye construction.

Here's the logic and thinking process behind the construction this eye type.  Let's start with the slightly simpler of the two, the Looney Tunes eye:

A. This type of eye simulates a real one much more.  It's best to envision the whole eyeball when drawing it. This eyeball will be in the character's cartoon eye socket.  In this case, the eye is so exaggerated that the ball would be enormous, so to save space I just made it an egg shape.

B. Just like with a real eye, the lids will have an origin.  A pivot point for the eyelids to open and close from.  It's good to imagine this pivot point on the other side of the ball. Notice it doesn't split the eye in half but favors the bottom of the eye.  NOTE: I'm putting a line down to show where the pivot point is for this step but I don't draw the pivot point at this stage.  I usually figure out a pivot point of the eye, after I've roughed out the eye lids.

C. When drawing the upper lid, make sure draw it wrapping around the eye ball. Sometimes, depending on the design, the top of the upper eye's lid are drawn thicker than the rest.  This is meant to imply the thickness of the eyelid.

D The same should be said about the lower lid.

E. When the eyeball is erased all that's left is the exposed ball of the eye and the long shaped lids.  I exaggerated the pivot area so you can see where they connect but more often than not, they are not so clearly marked.  This area often looks like one continuous line.

F. When the lids come down for blinks and expressions, the origin of the eyes are used.  Also the thickness of the eyelids are more clearly seen.

G.  Now that you have a finished eye, you can create any expression you want. You can even "break" the eye and make it do odd things in order to get the expression you want.  This only works because the base shape of the eye you're messing around with has a solid structures to start with.

Now let's tackle something a little more complicated with the more naturalistic Disney eye.

This eye is just an extension of the Looney Tunes eye, only it's even more naturalistic.

A. Again, we're starting this eye by thinking about it as an eyeball in a socket.

B.  And again, we're going to be using pivot points. Just like last time I don't really draw this line until after I've figured out the eyelids.

C. When drawing the eyelids, they should not only wrap around, but it's also a good idea to thicken up the eyelids to imply eye lashes. It also makes the eyelids look thicker.

D. Bottom lids also wrap around. Notice there's less bottom lid than top lid.  They eye should not split equally.

E.  Without seeing the rest of the eyeball, you should have something that looks like this.

F.  Here's a sample of the eyelids pivot.

G. Here's a wide eyed look.  I'm making sure to keep the upper lid lines thick, although I do it a bit with the lower lids too. I also added the wrinkle of skin above the eye as the eyelids compress to add to naturalism.

As you can see, familiarity with how a real eye works helps a lot when drawing his type of eye.  This is the reason why Figure Drawing and learning to draw naturalistic is the industry standard foundation for getting into the animation industry. Naturalism pushes your cartooning to a whole new level.

The variations of eyes that can be produced from this basic structure is tremendous.  Depending on the design and the style of characters, this type of eye can be very complicated or very simple.  But in the end, their basic structure is the same.

Below you'll find a turnaround of how a version of these set of eye may look like from different angles.  This example is NOT the dogmatic, definitive way these eyes MUST be drawn.  They're simply a version you can use that you can then modify to suit your whims:

I recommend you find some model sheets of the your favorite Disney or Looney Tunes cartoons to see how varied these eye types can look.

Bruce Timm Eyes

At their core, Bruce Timm Eyes are essentially, no different from Freddy Moore eyes except in one important way, their exterior design.

One of the reasons I'm bringing this up is to show the kind of variety you can get from something like the Freddy Moore eye formula.

So let's take a look at some Bruce Timm male eye designs and his standard female eye designs:

Bruce Timm male eyes are pretty much a modified version of the Freddy Moore eyes, only smaller on the head.  There is one apparent difference that I noticed when looking at his male eyes, compared to Freddy Moore's, the pivot points of the lids tend to be higher in most of his eye designs. There is more eye showing below the pivot than above:

When it come to the female eyes however, there something that happens clearly in Bruce Timm eyes that I didn't talk about before when writing about the Freddy Moore eyes. Something that's important to cartoon eye design.

Okay so, remember the pivot point I always point out on the eyes where the lids open and close from? Usually the pivots point are horizontally straight across from each other.  But if you want to vary the eyes even more, you can slant the pivot points. This is the main characteristic in Bruce Timm female eyes. And just like with the male eyes, there's more bottom lid then top lid.

Let me show you:

This can be done with any Freddy Moore based eye.  So this is the main reason I wanted to examine Bruce Timm eyes.  To give you a good example of what can be done once you have an understanding of the Freddy Moore eye.

Below you'll find a turnaround of how a version of these set of eye may look like from different angles.  This example is NOT the dogmatic, definitive way these eyes MUST be drawn.  They're simply a version you can use that you can then modify to suit your whims:

Takahiro Kimura Anime Eyes

Anime eyes are probably one of the most complicated type of eyes to draw. This is why I've been saving these type of cartoon eyes for last.  The reason is because they're so based on exaggerated reality.

I've seen a lot of "how to draw" manga books that completely ignore this.  But if you really want to understand how to draw a really good anime eye, you need to study real eyes.

Thing is, I've already showed you many of the things you need to know by showing you how to draw the eyes above.  However, here I'll go one step further and show you how a naturalistic eye drawing can be transformed into an anime eye.

I'll also add one more bit of info about eyelashes that I've left out in all the info about drawing eye above.  This eyelash info is relevant to all eye drawing so don't skip it just because you're not into anime or manga.

Let's get to it:

1. Here's a regular naturalistic eye. In order to take this eye and make it look like an anime eye you take the lids the iris and the pupils and...
2. stretch them out
3. You then erase most of the details leaving only the top fold wrinkle. You erase the connection of the eye to the pivot points. You darken in the inside thickness of the eyelid at the far end and you got an anime eye.

These are how naturalistic anime eyes are.

Yes, anime eyes can get far more stylized than this but they all tend to have this naturalism as their foundation.  Let's take a closer look at more stylized Takahiro Kimura anime eyes to show you what I mean.

1. Here we can see the fold of the eyelids.
2. (2A) represents the underside of the eyebrow as it wraps around the eye (more on that later).  Unlike a real eye, the Takahiro Kimura eye doesn't necessarily connect the eyelash edge to the pivot point.  (2B) represents the eyelash coming up and over defining the edged of the eye. (2C) in most anime eye stylizations there's always some sort of artistic license that often has no real world equivalent.  In the case of the Kimura eye, it's this extra eyelash.  It kinda works as both eyelash and an odd indication of the eye socket.
3. Here we have the eyelash drawn to show how it wraps around the eyeball.
4. Here's a tip about drawing eyelashes for naturalistic eyes, anime eyes and Freddy Moore type cartoon eyes:  The lashes wrap up and around the eye. Think of it like a ribbon you eventually break up to look like hair. You see the underside of the lashes as they turn away from us as, well as the top when they turn toward us.  You should avoid drawing individual lashes.  Lashes are often drawn completely black so you don't often see the way they turn. Even if you can't see this overlap in the lashes because of the black tone on them, it giving them dimension and a lot of depth.

Okay so let's take a look yet another variant of the Kimura eye:

1. Once again we have the fold of the upper eye lid. Although sometimes, as it is on the Kimura eye on our right, the fold is not always where it should be. In this case, you can argue it's actually describing the eye socket.
2. (2A, 2B) Once again we see the lashes as they wraps around the eye, and once again we have that odd stylization especially in the middle of the Kimura lashes that over emphasize the way they overlap over the eyeball. The act more like overhangs than lashes.
3. Here we have only the corners or the peak of the rounding of the eye drawn in the Kimura eye. The fact that it's this area that is drawn gives the eye dimension.
4. Lastly I just wanted you to notice that the pivot points in the naturalistic eye are slanted in order to give the eye a more exotic look, the way we did with the Bruce Timm eye.

You can breakdown the best anime and manga artist's eyes the way I did with Takahiro Kimura's eyes.  You can also separate the good manga artists from the bad ones by noticing which ones are devoid of structure.

Once again, below you'll find a turnaround of how a version of these set of eye may look like from different angles.  This example is NOT the dogmatic, definitive way these eyes MUST be drawn.  They're simply a version you can use that you can then modify to suit your whims:

A quick word on anime highlights.  Eyes are reflective, similar to mirrors.  The highlight in an eye is a reflection of the shape of the light source hitting the eye.  So if it's round, the light source might be a round lamp or the sun.  If it's square, the light source may be a a window.

Anime eyes sometimes have a TON of highlights.  This is simply artistic license.  But if you really think logically about it, those highlights must be a reflection of SOMETHING.  Do anime characters have a large lighting crew just off screen holding giant lamps everywhere they go?

That's that for the cartoon eye lesson. Now that you have a collection of eye formulas to work with, go and play round with them. Have some fun.

Questions?

I can’t help you if you don’t ask.

What’s your eye formula questions?

Is there something you’ve always wanted to know about cartoon eye formulas? Ask.

I’ll give you my best answer and, who knows,  probably write a post about it.

Leave any comments and questions in the comments below.

Or better yet, sign up to receive more information via e-mail. You’ll get extra tips and advice.  You can ask me questions that way also.

Cartoon Features and Parts: 3 Head Formulas

Now you know what you need to know about drawing cartoons.  However, it's often difficult to come up with your own formulas and designs. It helps to have a starting point.  A place to start and improvise from.

This is where I come in.  This is not going to be some much a lesson as it is a breakdown of some cartoon drawing formulas you can use to get you started drawing your own cartoons.

You can then move on from here and make modifications to make these formulas your own.

I'll give you sample formulas of heads, eyes, noses, ears, mouths, hair, facial hair, bodies, arms, hands, legs, feet, clothes, that you can use to get you started drawing your own cartoons.

This is not going to be an exhaustive list of features. Perhaps someday I may make a book just for that.  Here I will simply provide some samples of what can be used.  I'll try to include simple to complex formulas.  That way you can choose what you think you're capable of using depending on your skill level.

I hope you get a lot of if this. Let's get to it...

Heads

Let's start with head shapes.

I'm going to be talking about these head shapes below:

The shapes on top are the most simple shapes to use. If you've done the work up to this point, these shapes should be familiar to you.

The shapes on the second row are more advanced.  I'm going to spend a little bit of time on each one, showing you how to use them.

First though, let's quickly talk about the shapes on the top row.

You ought to be able to come up with different cartoon head designs using them.  They're some of the most basic yet useful and versatile shapes you can use.

I've drawn examples of the type of characters heads you can make with them and this is just the tip of the iceberg:  I only drew characters with dot eyes. You can imagine the amount of variation you can have if you use different eyes:

.

I only drew characters with dot eyes. You can imagine the amount of variation you can have if you use different eyes. These are the most common head shapes used in Looney Tune type of cartoons as well as classic comic strip style cartoons.

With a little imagination and some very slight modifications, there's very little you can't do using these basic shapes.

That said, well look at the shapes on the second row next. I'm going to show you how to build on at least one of the top basic shapes so you can see what modifying them can do.

Let's get to it.

The Secret of Great Cartoon Formulas

Okay, before I begin I need to tell you something really important.  In order for you to get the most out of these cartoon head formulas, you really need to know how to draw realistic, naturalistic heads.

Cartoons are exaggerated realism. If you don't know what a thing looks like in real life, how can you exaggerate it?  The more realistic you're able to draw, the better your cartoons.

However, I won't be getting into the realistic stuff until Level 2. So why am I teaching you these formulas? Because you can still use them and because, in many ways, knowing these formulas will ease you into more naturalistic drawing formulas.

You'll get more out of these formulas once you get better at drawing realistic, BUT you can use them now and get a lot of use out them.

Fred Moore Head

The most used formula in animation is the Fred Moore Head.  Fred Moore was one of Walt Disney's "Nine Old Men." The Nine Old Men where Walt's favorite animators.

Fred Moore was known for his appealin cartoon designs and girl drawings.  I doubt that Fred Moore necessarily invented this formula. It was probably a by product of many different drawing formulas that developed at Disney in the early days.

The formula is attributed to Fred Moore because he was one of the first animators at Disney to produce really appealing cartoons using the formula.  Once everyone saw what Fred Moore did with the formula, it was copied and adapted by everyone at Disney.

It's what is now considered the "Disney Style." Practically every animated Disney character has the Fred Moore formula at it's base.  The formula has since made it's way outside of Disney and is used in many animated movies and shows all over the industry.

The formula is basically an extension of the ball head.  You first draw a ball, and then you add...well...I'm not sure exactly what to call it.  A sack, a bag, a cushion, a bulge? Well, just look at the example below:

The blue areas above is the extension of the ball head. It's used in many different ways, but mostly it's used as a cheeks and jaw line extension of the face. It's a quick and easy way to add more form, dimension and anatomy to the head.

The extension can be long, short, broader, thinner, squarer...etc, depending on the type of character you're drawing.  I drew two head types that are often used.

Below I drew a quick, imprecise, turn around of what the formula tends to look like from different angles.  This is by no means a dogmatic absolute representation of the formula. It's just a quick overview of what the formula CAN look like. The proportions can differ depending on the character:

One of the reasons this formula was so universally adopted was because of it's mailability.

Animators discovered that the formula allowed them to squash and stretch the jaw and cheek extension to produce more life like movements on the face. Also this mailability allowed them to enhance the expressions they wanted to produce on their characters:

Another reason the formula was so useful was because of it's flexibility.  A modified version of this formula is still used at Disney to this day.  It may be a tad more blocky, and the characters, my have a tad more anatomy, but it's still essentially the same formula:

As you can see, simply by changing the features and proportions, you can get a good variety of characters using this head shape formula.  It's a good formula to use if you want to take your cartoon character designs up a notch, and it's fairly simple to use.

Bruce Timm Head

When it comes to the heroic cartoon look, it's tough to beat the Bruce Timm style.  Bruce Timm has managed to distill very complicated anatomy into the most simple shapes while keeping them looking powerful and dynamic.

Let's take a look at his head design and see what makes it tick. Keep in mind that there is more than one type of Bruce Timm head.  I'm going to be taking the most recognizable types to talk about here:

I'm going to focus specifically on the male head.  The reason is because Bruce Timm's female head is essentially a modified Fred Moore head.

See, it's just a ball with the a modified Fred Moore jaw:

The male head is a bit more complex.  I'm going to take a generic 3/4 view Bruce Timm head and break it down.  This is NOT the absolute dogmatic way you MUST draw this type of head. It's a suggestion.

If you find it easier to do it another way, please do it that way. However, I will point out a few things you should keep in mind when drawing the head from this angle.:

Steps:

1. At first I draw a sphere.  Why? I needed a guide. Something to anchor my head to.  As you can see the final head is not circular at all.
2. I then added the top of the head and neck.  The lines here are not perfectly straight. They curve a little.  Also note that the neck and scalp are combined and simplified into one line. Note also, that I circled the other side of the neck to show you the general area where it should connect to the sphere.
3. I then drew the front of the face and the jaw.  Note the close distance between the jaw line and the neck line (at least in this 3/4 view). When drawing in any style or drawing from observation, spacial relationships are important.
4. When adding the bottom jaw and chin lines, keep in mind you are in fact creating a type of box out of the head.  Where exactly should you put the bottom jaw line?  Experiment. There's no absolute placement. It's just about where it looks right.  If you don't like it, you can always change it.  Note the circled area in the drawing.  Make sure there's a clear devision between the front of the chin and the neck. This implies overlapping forms.  Otherwise the head will look flat.
5. Finally, I put in the ears, the eye line guide, and continue the front facing axis line. I also lightly draw the side plane starting from where the jaw and chin meet by drawing a line upward from there.  This is optional but I found it helps me define the front and side of the head.

And that's it.  It's not as simple as the Fred Moore head but with enough drawing repetition, you should get the hang of it.

Below is the full turn around of a generic Bruce Timm head.  These are NOT absolutes.  If you were to look at Bruce Timm's male characters over the years, the heads tend to fluctuate in width and shape:

Below is the type of character variation you can get using this these types of head shapes. It all depends on how thin, thick, long or short you make the head. Also, Bruce Timm uses his modified Fred Moore head formula on male characters as well.  All he needs to do is adjust the thickness of the neck and they look more masculine:

Now you have some head options for drawing something a bit more heroic.

Takahiro Kimura Anime Head

Building on both the prior styles, let's take a look at anime heads.  Specifically Takahiro Kimura anime heads.  Why Takahiro Kimura? For no other reason than because I happen to like his anime design style.

Now Takahiro Kimura mostly has a standard female head shape but his male heads are far more varied so I'm going to pick one male head type which could be modified as needed.

It's good that we've been over the Fred Moore head formula and the Bruce Timm head forma because, knowing those to formulas actually helps us with our anime head.  You may not know this but anime is heavily influenced by Disney and Fleisher Cartoons from 30s and 40s.

I recorded a video about this a while back, talking about the evolution of anime:

It should  come as no surprise that an anime head can be broken down into yet another modified Fred Moore head.  The difference being that the cheek/jaw modification, in the case of a Takahiro Kimura head is a lot more complex:

Note that the green area is not very large compared to the Bruce Timm female head.

There's a lot to watch out for when drawing this head type.  Keep these things in mind:

The curves on A and B are concave curves while the transition between both is convex.  The interior curves in C and D also follow this same pattern.

In profile, the nose and mussel area really stick out A LOT.  The area in E is very concave, while F can be pretty straight and is at a diagonal.

Now let's talk a bit about the male head.  By the way, the female head type can also be used to draw a more tradition male head. I give an example later in this lesson.

The Takahiro Kimura male head type I chose actually has a lot in common with the Bruce Timm head.  Only with some slight modifications you should keep in mind:

The head is much more straight at A and E.  The jaw line at C is at a sharper angle and ends in a much smaller chin.  There's a convex curve at B representing the corner of the other side of the jaw.  And make sure make a stair step between the neck and bottom of the chin like in D.

In profile the head angles out a bit in G.  And there's a convex curve in H which represents the area underneath the lower lip and the chin.  Yeah, the mouth is usually very high up in the face.

Here's an rough turn around of what a Takahiro Kimura anime head looks like:

Now that you've got that down, here's the type of heads you can make with this head type:

Of course, you don't HAVE to use it with anime features.

Note that the drawing on the upper left corner of the guy is drawn using the female head type.  When you draw males using that head type, they tend to have a more traditional anime look.

Studying Your Own Head Types

I recommend you practice drawing these head types until you get comfortable using these formulas.  Especially the Fred Moore head, since it's often the basis for just about every other head type.

Once you get comfortable working with these head formulas, go see if you can't figure out some of your own.  Either by inventing them yourself or by breaking down the head types of your favorite cartoons.

If you're not sure how you would do that, I recorded a video showing you how it's done:

Have fun.

Questions?

I can’t help you if you don’t ask.

What’s your burning head formula questions?

Is there something you’ve always wanted to know about head formulas? Ask.

I’ll give you my best answer and, who knows,  probably write a post about it.

Leave any comments and questions in the comments below.

Or better yet, sign up to receive more information via e-mail. You’ll get extra tips and advice.  You can ask me questions that way also.

Coloring Like a Pro

Coloring couldn't be easier. Once you have a drawing  you want to color, you simply pick the colors you want and apply them to the right bits of your drawing, right? Well, sort of...

You can do it that way an there's nothing wrong with that.  Color has A LOT to do with instinct and what seems right to you. But that will only get you so far.

Once you start really looking into color you will begin to see that it's a bit more complicated than  simply picking the colors you want something to be.  Especially when you want to get into more advanced coloring. The type of coloring professionals tend to use.

In this lesson we're going to go over two of four very important concepts that will help you understand how best to use color. Namely: Hue and Saturation.

The other two concepts, value and temperature, will be dealt with in Level 2. They tend to have much more in common with rendering and shading. Which are concepts I haven't even written about at all.

Once you're done with this lessons, you'll have a much better understanding on how best to use and control colors in your drawings. These concepts are foundational in order to get into things like getting very painterly looking cartoons.

Hue and Saturation

First let's begin by understanding what Hue and Saturation are:

Hue

Hue is simply a color.  Red, blue, yellow, green, orange, purple, aqua, whatever.  Hue is the intended color as it ought to be. No variations.

That's it.  Simple.

Saturation

Saturation on the other hand is a little more tricky. Saturation is color intensity.  All colors have a peak called "maximum Chroma".  A point where the colors are as clear and as pure as they can be.  At that point, a color is in it's idealized Chroma.

Beyond that point a Chroma goes from ideal to white, grey or black.  Yeah, that's why it's tricky. A color's saturation has THREE directions it can go.

We often only consider a color going from light to dark, but this is not the case.  It can also go grey.

Tint, Tone, Shade

In order to distinguish the directions a color may go, let's give them clear terms.  Let's use the terms: Tint, Tone, and Shade.

Tint - When you add white to a color until it becomes white.

Tone - When you add grey to a color until it becomes grey.

Shade - When you add black to a color until it becomes black.

Here's why this is important.  Most of us, if we even bother to think about saturation at all, tend to think in Tint and Shade.  We pick lighter versions of a color for some things, and we pick darker versions of colors for some things and that's it.

Doing that is fine. Except when you don't want to do monochromatic coloring or analogous coloring and want to color a cartoon using most of the colors in the color wheel.(see Lvl 0 Lesson on Coloring for more those topics)

How do you make your colors not clash?

That's when the grays come in. When working with multiple random hues, you can harmonize them all by toning them.  In other words, giving them all or most of them, a bit of gray tone.

The clashing or colors occur when the intensity of the colors you put together are too saturated.  When you dull them down with gray, you take away the intensity.  Especially if you're adding the same tone of grey to all the colors.  Since each color has the same color tone in it, they harmonize.

Also realize that you can also tint and shade a toned color for even more variations.

Too Dull

I'm NOT saying that you should always tone down ALL you're colors with gray, all the time.  Only when they're clashing. When you need to control their intensity and want them to harmonize more.

Here's what I mean...

Example

To the left we have a very simple little drawing of The Black Terror Kid.  I wanted to use a variety of colors for this drawing.

The most saturated colors are on his face, hair and cape. However, I didn't want the rest of the colors in the drawing to compete with him.  I also wanted to use any colors I wanted.

In order to avoid having the colors look garish while still having them feel unified, I toned down most of the colors around him.

Below are some hue and saturation bars of some of the colors in the drawing.

The farther up the the right on the bar you get the higher the saturation.

The higher to the top left, the higher the tint.

The further down you go on the right the darker the shade.

The further left and down you go, the more extreme the tone.

The floor is the most extreme example.  Notice where the circle is.  It's furthers to the left, closer to gray.  It's a combination of tone and tint.

It's a very grey brown.

The door is the second most extreme example. It's also tinted and it's closest to the left gray toned area.  Notice how far away from the saturated areas on the right it is.

The blue wall is much higher up.  It's still toned, closer to gray, but it's a much lighter gray.  It's also a very tinted version of blue.

The area behind The Black Terror Kid, was tricky.  I wanted something that was bright but not white or yellow.

I chose a green color.  This one is not as gray as the other colors.  If anything, it's mostly a tinted green.

The yellow doorknobs are also not very gray.  They're mostly tinted a bit.  However, they work really well with the more toned down, purple door exactly because the purple is toned down.

Granted, many of these colors are analogous to each other, which helps the colors harmonize but not all of them are.

My point is that by toning down most of the colors with gray, it's much easier to get a variety of different colors to harmonize well together.

Your Turn

Alright, I hope this is clear. However, when it comes to color the best way to understand it is to use it.

Below is a drawing I made for you. You're going to color it:

The first thing you need is choose your tools.  I'm giving you only two options: watercolors or a computer program.

You can used a paid program like:

• Photoshop
• Manga Studio
• Sketchbook Pro

Or a FREE program like:

• GIMP
• Pixlr
• Fire Alpaca

The reason I'm giving you only these two options is because...

With watercolors:

1. They're easily accessible and can be inexpensive.
2. Depending on how opaque you apply the paint, you can potentially get rich colors with them. This allow you to see right away if your colors are harmonizing or not.
3. They are very controllable and mixable. Unlike, say markers, watercolors can be mixed easily.  When you mix watercolors with one another, you can get different effects with them.  This allows you to create toned hues.  Which is the purpose of this exercise.
4. If you get good at coloring with analog paints, coloring digitally is easier to pick up.  This is not the case going from digital to analog.

With computer programs:

1. You'll get rich colors. These colors are difficult to ignore. If you put two colors together that don't work, you'll know it.
2. All these programs give you access to a hue and saturation bar. These bars are handy to pick your colors from when learning about using tone. You can deliberately pick colors in the grayer areas of the graph and check your results.
3. They're easy to edit.  If you pick a tone that's not working, you can simply chose a different tone until you find the one that works.
4. However, if you've never used a computer program to color with, and the learning curve is too steep, don't use a program. Just use watercolors.

Here's what I want you to do if you chose to use watercolors:

1. Download the image below by right clicking on the image and pressing the “Save Link As…” button.
2. Save it to your computer.
3. Print out the image. When you do, try to print it small. About 3 or 4 inches wide. (you may need to print a few in case your color experiments go wrong.)
4. Pick at least two cool colors and two warm colors and color the drawing with your watercolors. Try to harmonize the colors so they don't clash. Don't get fancy and try to shade or anything.  Just use flat colors.  If the colors are clashing, try to tone down the seemingly offending color by graying it down. (You may need to start over if this happens.)
5. Color mixing tip - In order to tone down a color, do NOT mix it with black.  Instead, use it's compliment (it's opposite color in the color wheel). When two compliments mix equally they create gray.  If you add a little bit of it's compliment to a color, it tones it down a little bit but doesn't turn it completely gray.  This is how you can control the saturation of your colors.

Here's what I want you to do if your coloring digitally:

1. Download the image below by right clicking on the image and pressing the “Save Link As…” button.
2. Save it to your computer.
3. Open it in the computer program.
4. Pick at least two cool colors and two warm colors and color it in whatever method that program allows you to color a drawing. Try to harmonize the colors so they don't clash. Don't get fancy and try to shade or anything.  Just use flat colors.  If the colors are clashing, try to tone down the seemingly offending color by graying it down.

Don't be discouraged in you don't get it right the first time. This is all about experimentation and what you think looks right or feels right.

Here's what I mean.  Below is my attempts to get something I liked.  First I picked out two warm colors, red and yellow.  Two cool colors, blue and green (although, I think my green was a tad on the warm side.) and then I just picked violet, which is a bit warm.

Once I did that I started to color:

My first attempt above, was a bit muddy.  I let the blue be saturated but I toned down everything so much that it looked too gray.  The colors looked dead.

I tried again:

This time the yellow and green where left more saturated. I also toned and tinted down the violet and red.  A bit too much.  They don't really even look like separate colors.  Also, since the background is so tinted, the shape colors don't really pop out.

So I tried again:

I went back to the darker background but with the more saturated shapes.  This felt right to me.  The red and violet being compliments to green and yellow, help them pop out more but they're toned down enough so they don't overwhelm.

Trouble?

Q: I've done what you've said, I've dulled down the colors and messed around as best I could, but the end result is just not right.  The colors are either too muddy, and I want them brighter, but when their brighter they don't look right together.

Is there anything else I can do?

A: Yes, there is.  It's actually fairly simple.  You can add a color glaze over all the colors.

With watercolor, you can pick a color, water it down and lightly glaze that color on top of the whole picture.  This instantly harmonizes the colors.

If you're using a digital program, color a layer one single color, put that layer above the other colors layers of your picture and reduce the opacity to about 1 - 5% or so giving all the colors a glaze.  This should also harmonize the colors.

Pro Tip

Generally speaking, when picking colors, it's best to pick analogous colors. They're much easier to harmonize.

Questions?

I can’t help you if you don’t ask.

What’s your burning Hue and Saturation questions?

Is there something you’ve always wanted to know about Hue and Saturation? Ask.

I’ll give you my best answer and, who knows,  probably write a post about it.

Leave any comments and questions in the comments below.

Or better yet, sign up to receive more information via e-mail. You’ll get extra tips and advice.  You can ask me questions that way also.

The Art of Ink Fu

You'd love to be able to ink and have your drawing have beautiful bold lines, but you don't know where to begin.  Inking seems so intimating and complicated.

Perhaps you've already made the inking plunge. You love being able to draw your own pictures with clean outlines and everything, but your lines are getting wobbly and messing up your work.

What are you doing wrong? Is there some kind of technique you're missing?  Do you simply need more practice?

In this lesson, I'm going to introduce you to Brushes, Dip Pens, Markers and how to take care of your tools.

We'll talk about making varied lines that look confident.

In this lesson, you'll learn Ink Fu.

Inking Tools

I've already introduced all of the inking tools I'm going to be talking about in the "Secrets of the Draw Fu Arsenal," lesson.

I'm going to be talking about these inking tools from the view point of easiest to hardest to use. Here is the order:

• Felt Tip Pens
• Dip Pens
• Brushes and Brush Pens

This is not necessarily the recommended way you should approach inking.  If you want to jump right in and start with brushes, I would actually encourage it.

Why?

Because if you can get used to the trickiest inking tool right away, it makes all the other tools easier to pick up.  However, if you choose to use the easiest tool to use first, every time you want to step up and use a tricker tool, it will be a frustrating struggle.

I know this from experience.  When I was about 12 or 13 years old, I was given my first dip pen.  I jumped right in, head first into inking. A few years later, I made my way into using brushes.  Brushes where so tricky that basically, I had to build my inking skills up all over again.

I really wished I had started with the brushes first.  Although, at the time I first started inking, I didn't even know brushes where an option.

However, when I started using Felt Tips Pens, it was absolutely no struggle at all.

Let's begin...

How To Use Felt Tip Pens

Okay, ready?  To use a felt tip pen like Pigma Microns and Pitt Pens, you pop the cap and you ink.

That's it.  The only real decision you have to make is in the size of tip you're going to use.

The line quality you will get with these pens are consistent.  You will not make a think or thin line using these pens.  Yes, there is a such thing as felt tip brush pen, but I'll talk about them in the brush section of this lesson.

For now, what you need to know is that the kind of lines you will make with the felt tips I'm currently talking about look like this:

If you want a more varied line you'll need to artificially create it by drawing the outline of the type of line you want:

Then filling it in:

It's a bit annoying to do this and time consuming. If you want a varied line, you might as well use the other ink tools I'm going to talk about later in the lesson.

There really isn't a whole lot more I could say about felt tips.

Perhaps I should therefore talk about how to make sure you don't get wobbly lines when inking. The technique I'm about to talk about is applicable to all inking tools, including dip pens and brushes.

Inking can be tough. I STILL get wobbly lines. Usually when I'm starting to ink a drawing and I haven't quite gotten warmed up.

The reason is, timidity. I'm so afraid of making a mistake that I draw too slowly. The thing about inking is that you can't be timid. You have to be confident. Bold.

In other words, you have to ink a bit faster than you feel you should. Not so fast that you're being reckless and out of control, but not so careful that your hand shakes and gives you a lousy line.

You have to find that right balance of both. And yes, this takes practice and experimentation. However, as I wrote before, I still get wobbly lines sometimes. So it also doesn't go away. You just need to make sure to understand why it's happening so you can be more bold when you ink.

Also, the same principle about using the natural pivots of your body, that I talked about in the Level 0 lesson "The Secret of Tracing Like a Pro: Basic Under Line Techniques," apply here.

As a reminder I'll simply copy what I said below:

"Here’s a little something I learned from a friend of mine who did clean up at Disney. Work WITH the natural pivots of your body, not against them. Here’s what I mean:

Your wrist is a natural pivot point. It’s like a limited compass. Your elbow is ALSO a natural pivot point.

Knowing this you can then position your PAPER and your drawing in such a way that when you make a mark, your working WITH those natural pivots. You’ll find that your lines will come out looking better for doing so."

Here let me show you:

Don’t be afraid to move your paper around.

What are these tools best used for?

Anytime you need to ink something without line variation, these are great tools.  However, another useful way to use them is with alcohol based markers.

These pens don't smear when they come in contact with the alcohol in the markers.  These make them ideal to use as a first ink pass when using those type of makers.

How To Use Dip Pens

Dip pens are fun, and they make you feel like an inker.  However they do require a tad bit more maintenance than felt tips and they can sometimes be temperamental. They also require the purchase of an ink bottle.

Before I go any further, lets take a closer look at a nib.

Anatomy of a nib:

A little bit about the types of nibs.

The most common nibs to use are the "Gillett." they look like the one above. The other is the Hunt Dome Point, which looks like this:

These type of nibs give a variety of line widths.

The smallest Gillett points are great for tiny details. Those look like this:

When I talk about nibs, these are generally the ones I mean.

However, You can also get the Speedball nibs which also come in handy once in a while. These type of nibs tend to hold ink for longer, which means less dipping.  However, they act more like the felt tip pens I talked about earlier in that, they give you a consistent line without any variety at all.

You can use Speedball nibs, pretty much in the same way you use felt tips, except the ink you use might smear if you use them with alcohol based markers.

Each of these types of nibs have different uses and create different types of lines.  I'm not going to go into them all right now.  Besides, you might find that you like using one type of nib for something I wouldn't use it for and vice versa.

It's best you test them out, to see what you like about each type.

Dip pens are generally easy to use.

Simply open your ink bottle, dip the pen so that the ink has covered over the vent hole. Then pull it out and wipe any excess ink that threatens to drip off the tip, on the edge of the ink bottle opening.

Don't over do it or you may wipe out all the ink from the nib.

Now that you have ink on your pen, you are ready to ink.  You ink by holding the pen with the top side up. It's a good idea to have a test sheet of paper nearby so you can check the ink flow in the nib.

If you didn't properly wipe the nib, you might get a blot of ink.  When you try making a mark and nothing comes out, it means the ink has not made it's way from the tines to the tip of the nib.  This may require a few strokes on your part to coax the ink down.

This is where the nibs get temperamental.  Some nibs work better than others. And some simply need to be used a bit before the become "broken in."

To make a mark, you simply place the nib on the paper and you pull the pen in the direction you want to make a mark. Unless you're using a Speedball nib, you never push up or slide the nib sideways to make a mark. If you push up, you can potentially stab into the paper.  If you slide the nib sideways, it may not make a mark.

Speedball nibs will make a mark no matter what direction you slide the pen.

You should always hold the pen in such a way that when you make a mark,  you're pulling the nib in the direction you want your mark to go. It takes some getting used to.

Depending on how much pressure you use to press down as you make your mark, the tines will expand and contract to give you a thin or thick line.  Be gentle. If the tines open up too much, then no ink will flow out at all.

Cleaning

Once you're done inking, you need to clean your pen. It's not as bad as it sounds. It's a lot like cleaning a brush.

I have a jar of clean water where I dip the pen in to wash off the ink. After I make sure all the ink is off, I dry it off the quill with a paper towel. A bit more ink comes off when I do that.

You can take it one step further, get some soap and water and gently clean the nib too. Whatever you do though, don't leave the pen in the jar of water. The nib will rust and ruin the pen. I learned this the hard way.

What are these tools best used for?

Again, dip pens are best used for inking anything you want to have thick and thin finished black lines on. When you use waterproof ink, you can use water colors and paint over your finished drawing without the fear of ruining the line work.

Although, alcohol based markers may not be so forgiving.

Dip pen ink lines have a beautiful, unique quality to them that is difficult to duplicate using any other kind of pen. There are special hatching and line effect that are only possible by using a nib.

The more you use them, the more you'll fall in love with them.

How To Ink With Brushes

Brushes are the trickiest ink tools to work with. However, there are ways to ease your way into using them which I will get to in a bit.

When it comes to brushes, the type of brush and the size make all the difference. Professional inkers swear by fine point Sable Brushes. They are by far the best and most expensive brushes you can buy.

Don't worry about that if you're starting out. For now you simply need to get an affordable brush that will serve the purpose.

What you're looking for is a watercolor brush that comes to a fine tip. The size of the brush depends on you level of comfort. For a beginner I recommend a size 1, or 2. The reason is because with slightly smaller brushes, if you lose control and end up with a fat line, the line still looks reasonably small.

The bigger the brush, the fatter the line you can make, but also the more control you'll need to get a finer line. However, if you want to fill in large black areas, you will need a bigger brush so that work doesn't take forever to do. Usually a size 6 or higher should work well.

Using a brush is simple. Like a dip pen, you simply dip the brush in the ink and wipe off any excess on the opening of the ink bottle, until you know it's not too saturated with that it drip off your brush.

You're going to want to have a piece of scratch paper to test your brush in on occasion. The first times you use the brush you may want it just to see what the saturation of ink on the brush is like when you make marks.

I always have a piece of scratch paper when I ink for this purpose. I also use it to test out different kinds of effects I want to make with the brush before I use it on my actual drawing.

Making a mark on the page is much easier with a brush than with a dip pen. You can easily make a mark moving your hand and arm in any direction you want.

However, the tricky part of using the brush comes in the fact that, unlike a dip pen which has a solid tip, the brushes softer tip makes is tricker to make a steady consistent line. Random thick and thin variation as well as shaky looking lines are what you'll end up with until you learn to gain some control.

Cleaning

If you've used a brush before, you pretty much know how to clean it. Have a jar of clean water where you dip the brush in to wash off the ink.

DON'T smash the brush at the bottom of the jar. You can ruin the point of the bristles that way. You can wipe the brush a the bottom from side to side to get the ink off that way.

After test to see if the ink is off by making strokes on a paper towel. If it's doesn't make leave any dark marks, it's clean.

You can take it one step further, take the brush to a sink and gently pull your fingers across the brush to squeeze any ink you think may still be in the brush.

Whatever you do, don't leave the brush in the jar. It will bend the tip and ruin the brush. Believe me, I know.

Easing Your Way Into Brushes

Brushes can be intimidating to use. If you want to take baby steps, there are options.

First there are felt tip brush pens you can use. The benefit of felt tip pens, is that they tend to have varying levels of tip sizes and hardness.

You can start with a hard tipped pen and work your way to softer pens.

Also, you don't have to clean them. They're pens.

However, depending on the material the pen tips are made from, these pens can lose their tip integrity and become "fuzzy." Which makes them, unusable. Just be aware of that.

If you want to take the next step up, you can use a synthetic fiber, brush pen. These pens give you the real quality and experience of using a brush, without all the cleaning.

They come with their own reservoir of ink. Often the ink is in replaceable cartridges. Some of these brush pens allow you some control over ink flow, and others do not:

It's beyond the scope of this lesson to review each type of brush pen. It's not a bad idea to go out and experiment with them to see which type you like.

These pens are my go to ink tools. I LOVE them. It's possible to simply used these pens and never touch an actual brush.

HOWEVER, even though these pens are amazing, they STILL don't give you the diversity of absolute control that a real brush does. Especially when you discover that the quality of each brush pen brush varies, even when you buy duplicates of the same brand pen.

What are these tools best used for?

Brushes are best used for inking anything you want to have the highest line variety possible. When you use waterproof ink, you can use water colors and paint over your finished drawing without the fear of ruining the line work.

Although, alcohol based markers may not be so forgiving.

Brushes give you a unique organic looking living lines. They are often softer looking lines than the ones made using a nib. The larger brushes also help you coat large areas of a drawing with black ink when needed.

Line Variation

I talked a lot about thick and thin lines. An inked drawing with a consistent line width, can be a bit dull. Variations in the lines can add dynamism and visual interest.

Line variation can also add mass and form as well as accenting what forms are in front of other forms.

Most commonly, line variation is there to emphasize a light source. What I mean by that is, that more often than not, lines are often drawn heavier the further they get from the light source and thinner the closer they get to it.

In drawings with no clear light source, artists often default to creating lines that mostly thicken at the bottom, and get thinner at top. Light is often brightest at top of things and gradually darkens as it turns away from the light.

It's a good rule of thumb to keep in mind if you're not sure how to approach line variation.

The only other rule of thumb that I will add, is that foreground elements ought to have the thickest lines to represent closeness or clarity. Mid-ground elements should be "normal" or your personal "average" and the background elements should have very thin lines to represent the atmosphere effecting them and the distance.

However, there is no absolutes and sometimes the line does what it does accidentally as you ink and it turns out looking good anyway. There's no right or wrong here, it's really all about what you intend or what looks right to you.

There isn't any absolute rules that MUST be followed. The rules of thumb I've given are just starting off points. You can invent what you want out of your line variations from that point on.
Experiment and find out what works best for you

Examples

Alright, now I show you SOME of the things that can be done using these inking tools.  Beginning with:

Felt Tip Inking

There are many great ways to ink with felt tips.  This is the simplest of them all. A straight forward line drawing.

Nothing fancy:

Dip Pen Inking

Artist Charles Dana Gibson was a master of the dip pen. His work is amazing.  Here's an example of the kind of work you can pull off using dip pens.

Notice the line variation. Some thin lined areas describe the turning of the forms while implying the light color of the surface.

While other thinker lined areas also describe the direction of forms but imply a much darker local color.  As well as shadow areas.

Brush Inking

I've used this example before. This is a copy of Frank Frazetta drawings I did.

If you want to start learning how subtle you can get using the ink tools you want to use, copy the inkers you admire.

Frazetta used a combination of very thin exterior outlines which creates great contrast with the large black areas of the shadows.  Then he feathered out very thin lines from those areas to describe the firm tones and the direction of the anatomical planes.

Mixing It Up

But here's the thing, you don't have to stick with only one medium for one drawing.  You can use multiple tools in a single drawing.

You just need to know what tool you find easier to work with, for specific inking situations.

Below are some five minute figure drawings I did.  I used a very thin felt tip to lay in my basic gestures, then I went in with a grey ink brush pen to describe the shadow shapes (which I didn't have time to fill in with tone).  Finally I used a black ink brush pen to outline the figure's contours:

The drawing below has one less pen.  Again, I used a thin felt tip to lay in the gesture, then I used a brush pen to do the outline and shading:

In the drawing below, the "Draw Chi" patterns surrounding this woman where all done using very thin Micron pens.  The woman was also inked with Microns. After applying the gray tones using a grey felt tip marker, I went over some of the Micron lines with a brush pen to add some variety, and add the large black areas:

Your Turn

Alright, now that you know the theory, it's time to get practical.  I can explain inking to you until I'm blue in the face, but doing it is everything.

Below you'll find some images to ink.  I've done two versions, a version with line variation and a version without:

Varied Lines

Unvaried Lines

With the first one,  I created the line variation I want you to follow.  Where the line is thick, you should match the thickness. Where the line is thin, you should match the thinness.

I'm asking you to do it this way so you can get used to the ink tool you're using.

The version without line variation allows you to create the line variations you want to use on the fly.  Just to experiment and see what happens.

So in order to do the exercise, here's what you need to do:

1. Download the images by right clicking on the images and pressing the “Save Link As…” button.
2. Save it to your computer.
3. Print out the image,
4. Ink over the printed image using your preferred tool.

Like this:

Once you're done, you should have something that looks like this:

This exercise is almost exactly the same as the one in Secret to Tracing Like a Pro lesson. In fact, if you want to have even more practice, you can take the images from the clean up exercises in that lesson and ink them too.

Pro Tip

When working on your own stuff for the first time, I recommend you create the line variation on the final drawing before you ink it, the way I did in the first example above.  The reason for this is so you can test out the line variety without the pressure of it being permanent.

If, for example, you don't like the way the line looks, you can erase it and adjust it.  This way, you learn what you like and what you don't.  Eventually, you won't have to do this and you'll do it as  you ink.

Trouble?

Q:  My lines are very wobbly. I don't know enough to know if I'm missing technique or if I just need to do a lot more of it. If I had to guess I'd say probably some of both. What should I be doing?

A:  Inking can be tough.  I STILL get wobbly lines.  Usually when I'm starting to ink a drawing.

The reason is, timidity.  I'm so afraid of making a mistake that I draw too slowly.  The thing about inking is that you can't be timid.  You have to be confident.  Bold.

In other words, you have to ink a bit faster than you are.  Not so fast that you're being reckless and out of control, but not so careful that your hand shakes and gives you a lousy line.

You have to find that right balance of both.  And yes, this takes practice and experimentation.  However, as I wrote before, I still do this sometimes.  So it also doesn't go away.  You just need to make sure to understand why it's happening so you can be more bold when you ink.

Also make sure you use the natural pivot points of your body, EXACTLY the way you did when drawing a clean line in The Secret of Tracing Like a Pro lesson.

Read the tip under the "TROUBLE" section there for more information.

Questions?

I can’t help you if you don’t ask.

What’s your burning inking questions?

Is there something you’ve always wanted to know about inking? Ask.

I’ll give you my best answer and, who knows,  probably write a post about it.

Leave any comments and questions in the comments below.

Or better yet, sign up to receive more information via e-mail. You’ll get extra tips and advice.  You can ask me questions that way also.

Dynamic Picture Making and Environments

You want to draw a cool picture but how to do it? There's nothing's worse than sitting in front of a blank sheet of paper, having an notion of what you want to draw but not knowing where to start or how to do it. How do you draw a cool, dynamic picture?

You also know that in order to draw a cool picture, you're going to need to create some sort of environment for your character to be in. Creating an environment and drawing a dynamic picture often go hand in hand. Although, most likely, it's an environment you may not want to draw or create.

Let's face it, you probably don't want to draw backgrounds.  The thought of it makes you think it will be boring and technical. It's no where near as fun as drawing cartoon figures full of character.

When it comes to coming up with interesting, dynamic picture making, there's a few fun tricks that can get you past that first uncertain stages.

And regarding drawing environments, it can be as fun and rewarding as drawing characters.  It's all a matter of how you approach them.

In this lesson, we're going to talk about creating dynamic drawings with characters inside environments.  By the time we're done here, not only will you be able to "play" your way through creative block, but you'll also have fun and even look forward to creating cool backgrounds and environments for your characters to be in.

Applying What You Know and Obtaining New Knowledge

If you've read all the lessons so far, you'd be surprised to know that a lot of what I've written about drawing cartoon characters applies directly to backgrounds and environments.

You are, in fact, already equip to tackle them.  It's just a matter of showing  you how to apply what you already learned and know.

Also drawing backgrounds and environments require you to learn new things as you go.  This means you need to find ways to obtaining this knowledge.

I will also address a rule of thumb to keep in mind when drawing these things.

So let me give you a quick list of the concepts we'll be going over when it comes to drawing background and environments:

• Foreground, Middle Ground, and Background
• Rhythm
• Shapes
• Character
• Reference

Sound familiar? Most of these things I've addressed in previous lessons.  Let me take each of these subjects and show you how they apply to picture making. Beginning with one of the newer concepts...

Foreground, Middle Ground, and Background

A good rule of thumb when approaching a drawing is to attempt to break up the picture plane into three distinctive parts: Foreground, Middle Ground, and Background.

It's not always possible to have all three elements in a drawing, but it's always good to try.

Whether you can get all three elements in the drawing or only two, you should strive to clearly show that they're separated by space.  In other words, make it clear that the foreground elements are closer to us, the middle ground are a bit further away and the background is furthest away.

If it helps, think about these elements like a box diorama. Anything you draw in the foreground is placed closest to the lid of the box.  The middle ground elements are placed in between the lid and the back of the box. And the background is the back of the box:

Thinking about these three elements in this way from the start, will automatically add interest and dynamism to a drawing.

Rhythm

When drawing organic environments, rhythm lines are you friends.  By "organic environments," I mean, forests, jungles, parks...anything that is mostly nature.

Lines should flow naturally in and out of each other. Straight lines are not often found in nature. The ideal lines to use when creating organic environments are "c" curves and "s" curves.

Once you start putting flowing lines on a piece of blank paper, the drawing quickly starts "telling you" what it needs and wants to do.

You're working with abstract ideas here, it's okay if it doesn't look like anything at first. You'll make it look like something later.

Combined with the foreground, middle ground, and background rule of thumb, you can come up with some great looking, dynamic drawings quickly:

Shapes

More often than not, you're aren't drawing organic environments. You're drawing streets, and rooms.  Man made structures of some sort. That's when flat shapes come in and save the day.

Remember, we give the elusion of space but we work first in flat graphics. To this end, when drawing something brand new on a blank page, composing the space you're working in with flat graphic shapes, is a great way to play with dynamics placement.

If you do so, you find out right away if what you're doing in aesthetically pleasing or not.  This saves drawing time since you're not drawing pretty drawings. If you don't like what you've done simply toss the drawing away or, if you've drawn lightly enough, erase and adjust.

What you may end up with is something you might see an abstract painter do, basically because your are in fact playing with abstracts:

The flat shapes can be as simple or as informative as you'd like, but the main idea is to keep it simple. The intent is not to have a finished drawing at first, but to have something you can play around with.

Once you find what you want, you can then go in and start fleshing out the drawing more.

Character

Speaking of fleshing out the drawing, this is where drawing environments gets a bit more like drawing characters.

An environment isn't just a place.  In your mind, it should have a history. It should also say something about people. Either the people in it, the people who created it, or the way the it makes people feel.

Most environments you create shouldn't simply exist as a backdrop.  They should tell a story, even if only at a subconscious level.

If it's a forest, what kind?  Where is it located? Is it a hot climate there? Is it cool? What altitude?  What kind of animals might live there?  What kind of trees?

If it's a building, what's it's purpose?  How old is it? When was it built? What atmosphere are you trying to convey by the way you've drawn it?

If it's an interior, what's it's purpose? Who furnished it? What does the way it's furnished say about the person who either lives in the place or furnished it?  What's the ambiance you want the audience to take away, by seeing or feeling this particular interior?

There's so much fun stuff that goes into creating a great environment.  It may say as much if not more about the character who inhabits it than how they look. It's a characters enhancing tool.

Use it.

Reference

When it's time to start finishing up and putting in the details of a given scene, character, history, story, mood, dictate what best to draw. This is when reference comes in.

What kind of chair would this character furnish their studio with?  What kind of bed would they sleep in? What type of trees make up this forest?

Look them up! Find reference.  See what fits, what doesn't.  Feed your brain. Don't draw symbols of chairs, beds or trees, draw actual chairs, beds or trees.

I always find it interesting that, beginning artists assume they should NEVER look at reality or observe the world around them to draw something.

They assume that they should use their imagination alone, never realizing that reality is the very food of our imagination.

Not only that, often the reason we don't want to create or draw environments is because we simply don't have a good idea of what to draw.  We don't know what the place should look like.

Reference fixes this creative block.  It helps you slowly whittle away what you don't want and slowly guides you to what you do want.  This eventually begins to create a clearer picture in your mind.

It get's your imagination going and ultimately makes your environments unique.

Examples

Alright, it's time to show you some practical examples.

This time around, I'm using art from one of my comics.  Environments take a bit more time to produce and, as much as I would like to recreate some Disney concept art which might get me in trouble, I just thought I'd use what I've already done.

Below is an exterior shot, in a wilderness type of setting:

As you can see, there's clearly a foreground, middle ground, and background in the drawing that leads you deeper.  The bush in the corner, the bunnies and the mailbox are the foreground. The house and the tiny bunnies near it, are the middle ground. The cliff, sky and forest are the background.

Below I show you the basic sweeping lines I used when drawing all the nature in this piece. I left out the house and the characters as part of the sweeps since I didn't take them into account when drawing it:

Now we have the an interior shot of the house.  It's a study.

Again notice the foreground, middle ground, and background in the piece:

When drawing this environment, I used mostly straight lines and created it all using flat shapes.

Both these environments where put together using reference I'd gotten from my different sources.

Your Turn

Create environments with a character in it using these techniques.

Exercise 1

Rhythm  - Draw natural environment. When faced with a blank frame:

• Start by breaking up the frame up using "c" curves and "s" curves. Avoid straights. Let these lines flow around the page. Something along the lines of some of the exercises in Level 0 Lesson 1.  Don't over do it. Make sure you put a few sweeping lines that go across the entire page. Avoid breaking up the picture plane in half.  See the Basic Composition Lesson for more tips. There's also more tips below in the Pro Tips section.
• Once you have what you deem to be enough, see what you can make out of the lines.  You may find that the lines are already implying an environment. Start defining the topography of the potential environment by drawing a grid over all the elements.
• Think about the history, mood, feel,...etc. of what you want to convey with the drawing.  Give it character.
• Make sure to break up the space into the three sections: Foreground, Middle ground, and Background.  Ideally, you should have these elements in mind before you even begin.
• Use reference to get ideas and add the right kinds of natural details. This will make the overall drawing more convincing. You can use the reference before or after you start the exercise. If you get it before, you're more likely to get something far more deliberate and less random. The reference may very well give you a direction to go in from the start.

Like this...

Here's my preliminary rhythm lines:

And here I define the topography using grid:

Below is my reference. Photos I took in Descanso Gardens:

And this is what I quickly came up with when I put it all together:

It doesn't have to be perfect. It can be rough.  You just want to get comfortable drawing and thinking in this way.

Your goal is to get good at breaking up the picture plane in interesting and dynamic ways.

Exercise 2

Shapes - Draw a more man made environment. When faced with a blank frame:

• Put abstract shapes on the page. They don't have to represent anything. Find a pleasing arrangement for those shapes. Play around with sizes and the position of the shapes.  Play with the shapes themselves. Have fun. It's like a game.
• Once you have something that looks right to you, see what you can make out of the shapes. Perhaps you already had something in mind.
• Decide where the Horizon Line and Vanishing Points are so you can solidify the shapes.
• Think about the history, mood, feel,...etc. of what you want to convey with the drawing.  Give it character.
• Make sure to break up the space into the three sections: Foreground, Middle ground, and Background.  Ideally, you should have these elements in mind before you even begin.
• Use reference to get ideas and add the right kinds of natural details. This will make the overall drawing more convincing. You can get the reference before of after you start the exercise. If you get it before, you're more likely to get something far more deliberate and less random. The reference may very well give you a direction to go it from the start.

Like this...

This time around I started with the reference first.  Pictures I took in a plaza in Pasadena:

Taking these photos as inspiration, I came up with a composition by breaking up the picture plane with some flat shapes:

This was not my first pass.  I drew a few versions until I found something I liked.

Once that happened, I added a Horizon Line and a single vanishing point.

Using the reference I then went in a roughed out the details of the background:

I did NOT use a ruler.  I find them confining when I'm creating something like this.  I just eyeballed the perspective as best as I could using the grid lines I placed in.  That's what they are for.

If I wanted to, I could go over both of the rough drawings from Exercise 1 and 2 and add another polished pass.  Including adding a pass with a ruler for Exercise 2.

You don't have to do that though.  You can keep it rough in order to get the hang of drawing environments in this way.

Draw as many of these environments as you want until you think you've got the hang of it.  You'll find you'll want to add environments for your characters to be in once you get used to this.

Trouble?

Q: Can I start with the perspective first?

A: It's better that you don't. You'll find you'll have a lot less control  over your picture if you do.

This isn't to say that you shouldn't think about perspective when you're drawing these kinds of environments.

Perspective should be the first and last thing you should really be worrying about when drawing environments.

When you beginning scribbling down anything, think about where the horizon line MIGHT be. This should ALWAYS be in the back of your mind. You don't need to actually put it into the drawing as you go. Simply keep it in mind.

Leave any actual horizon lines, vanishing points and grids until you're satisfied with the placement of your shapes.  Keep thing malleable until that point. Give yourself as much space to play around.

Perspective grids and vanishing points are used to generally start locking things in place.

Pro Tips

When in doubt, lower the horizon line.

In Level 0 Lesson 7, I wrote about basic composition.  In it I showed examples creating contrast by moving the horizon line off the center of the picture plane and moving it either further up or further down.

If you're not sure where to put the horizon line, error on the side of putting it below the center line than above it.  Having a lower horizon line helps create dynamic contrast in shapes and rhythms, almost by default.

For further reading on the subject, I highly recommend you visit my personal blog and read the post I wrote:

A Lesson Indirectly Learned From Brad Bird

I would have simply copied all the info and put it here, but it's kinda long and it's just easier for me to link to it.

Also, this info will eventually be printed in a book. I use I ton of copyrighted material in the post that I don't have permission to reproduce in print.

Questions?

I can’t help you if you don’t ask.

What’s your burning drawing environment questions?

Is there something you’ve always wanted to know about backgrounds? Ask.

I’ll give you my best answer and, who knows,  probably write a post about it.

Leave any comments and questions in the comments below.

Or better yet, sign up to receive more information via e-mail. You’ll get extra tips and advice.  You can ask me questions that way also.

Monkey Style Draw Fu – Copying

Okay, now you know all the fundamentals that go into drawing cartoons. Problem is, it's slow going.  You know what to do, you know how to do it but, your stuff doesn't look right.  You're stuck. It feels as if you're running in place.

You wish there was a way of getting better faster. What's the best way to increase your improvement rate? How can you get faster results?

In this lesson, this is what we're going to tackle.  One of the fastest ways to improve is to copy.

Copy? Yes copy.

This lesson will explore the benefits of copying and why it will help you improve your drawing faster than just about anything else.

Isn't Copying Cheating?

Most people think that copying is somehow cheating.  It's not "real drawing."  Nothing could be further from the truth. It takes great observation skills and hand eye coordination  to be able to copy something well and accurately.

Believe it or not, these skill have enormous benefits when drawing from life and imagination. It's a very important ability.  The better you are at copying, the easier drawing from your imagination will become.

The Benefits of Copying

Why is this?  How can copying help you improve faster? Here's a list of benefits.  I'll go into each one below:

• Increases observation skills
• Solves drawing problems.
• Know what drawing well feels like.
• Builds visual vocabulary.
• It's an easy win.

Increases Observation Skills

By far, one of the most important skills to have when drawing is good observation skills. Observing and then capturing what you're seeing on paper, is essential for drawing.

You may want to draw something you observe from life or draw a famous cartoon character.  In both these cases, knowing how to draw what you see accurately is a must.

When I was little, I used to copy cartoon drawings I liked.  I did it a lot.  I got good at it.

As a working professional in animation, I can't live without this skill.  It helps me draw the characters I need to draw "on model." Which is a fancy way of saying, they look like they should look.

Copying other people's drawings is a fun and fantastic way to increase your observation skills.

Solves Drawing Problems

Drawing is problem solving. Every part of a cartoon is a problem to solve.  The more you do it, the more "answers" to problems you have.  It's what makes some cartoonists better than others.

When you copy other cartoonist's drawing you see how other artists have solved certain drawing problems. You walk in another artist's shoes. Why struggle for answer when someone has already solved it for you.

It also creates a better understanding of the work of the person's whom you're copying. This leads to the next benefit.

Buildings Visual Vocabulary

If you copy from more than one cartoonists, you will suddenly have a greater library of drawing solutions to choose from. Every cartoonist has their solutions to drawing problems.

Copying helps you learn them.  Use this to your advantage.

Know What Drawing Well Feels Like

Part of the reason drawing can get frustrating is because your body and your brain don't know if they're doing it right. What is it like to draw well? How do you know you're doing it?

Copying helps.

When you copy someone better than you, it helps you feel what drawing well is like. It gives your body something to lock onto and mimic.  It can condition good drawing muscle memory.

Your brain will start seeing and making better judgments. It increases the likely hood that you will be able to feel how you should draw. You've drawn well once, you can do it again.  Your body has experienced it.

It's An Easy Win

You know how I am about easy wins.  They help you move forward so much faster.

When you're feeling a little stuck and you want to have a least one good drawing at the end of the day, copy. Copying a drawing from someone you admire, not helps you learn something, but you will have created a potentially satisfying final product you can be proud of.

How to Copy

Alright, now that you know the benefits of copying, how do you do it to get the most out of it? I'll give you tips to think about when studying by copying.

• Compare positive and negative shapes.
• Backwards engineer the drawing process.
• Use the same tools as the person you're copying, if possible.

Let me explain what I mean. Interestingly, the first two tips are almost contradictory

Compare Positive and Negative Shapes

Remember how every drawing can be broken down into flat shapes? Well one of the first things you should do when copying is trying to find what those shapes are.

This requires comparing landmarks on the original drawing and either measuring or eyeballing their relationship to one another.

Like this:

You want to also note the shape the negative spaces on the thing you're drawing makes.  The negative space is the spaces between the forms that separate the forms.

Here's an example below:

Both these methods are there to help you see the drawing as a whole unified design. The goal is to have a road map where you will draw the rest of your study.  You're basically creating an accurate lay in to work off of.

I'll explain this more later in the this lesson.

Backwards Engineer the Drawing Process

Having said that about the surface and design of a drawing, you should NOT obsess yourself with drawing surface details. When copying a drawing, the final line should be the last thing on your mind.

Instead you should focus on how the artist got to the final product. Work out the under drawing that creates the final look. Construct the drawing.

Once you have your lay in, start with the simple forms and then build the compound forms on top of those. Use you're favorite construction formula and apply it to the drawing.

You want to be mindful of how the drawing was made, rather than being a mindless photocopy machine. You want to experience the full drawing process, otherwise you're missing the point of copying in the first place.

Use the Same Tools as the Person You're Copying, if Possible

This isn't an absolute but it's very useful to use the same tools or media as the cartoonist you're copying.

For example, if you're copying an ink drawing, yes, you can start solving the drawing in pencil, but once you're done, try finishing the drawing using ink. If they used a brush to ink, you might try it too. If it was a quill pen, you might want to use one too.

The point is to try to experience the drawing as they did. You learn more about the process that way.

Example

As I've said, I used to copy a lot when I was younger.  Although I didn't really copy in a very informative way.  It did help me hone my observation skills.

I don't have many of my earliest copies.  I do have some from Junior High and High School.

Below is a page full of copies from Junior High (around age 11 or 12).  At this point, my parents had gotten be a quill pen and ink.  I used it to ink this drawing full of slapstick superheroes I copied from the Marvel spoof comic What the...?!, which I loved:

It's like a copy collage.

I did something similar a while later.Here's a drawing I did for a book report in Junior High. All the characters in the drawing I copied from books and comics of my favorite artists at the time:

In high school I did the same thing.

The drawings below are from high school. It's a copy from Mike Peter's Mother Goose and Grimm.  I was trying to emulate the thick ink lines from that comic strip. The fire hydrant below is original to me:

A little Sergio Aragonés:

etc...

Years later, as I was a working layout artist on The Simpsons, I had, what I call a "turning point sketchbook." I call it that because it's the sketchbook that clearly shows a sudden leap in understanding and improvement on my part.

It all happened, after I decided to sit down and copy from some of my favorite artists.  Artists that I wanted to be able to draw like.

Below are the drawings I copied so you can see what I did:

I don't remember who I was copying the Batman from.  The guy on the right was from a Body Bags comic book by Jason Pearson.

The Batman face on the bottom is original. I was applying what I was learning.  You can also see how I drew a tiny silhouette of the Pearson drawing to clarify the graphic shapes of the drawing for myself.

Below are some Frezzato copies. The guy with the short hair in the page is original.  I was testing out what I had learned:

Below is are many Adam Hughes copies.  The head drawings in the page below are originals based on what I was learning from the copy:

More Adam Hughes copies below.

The Jesus drawing and the apostle are originals and where taken from the Jesus of Nazareth Movie from 1977.  The long haired guy with the goatee is also original.  All the original drawings were tests to see what I had learned from the copies:

Below still more Adam Hughes.  The little red drawing is original.  Again, I was testing what I had learned:

I still study by copying.  It's not like there's a point where you stop studying.  The moment you do, is the moment you stop growing as an artist:

Above are some Frank Frazetta ink copies.

Your Turn

Using the examples above as a guide, pick the artist you'd most like to draw like and copy his work.  Make sure you break up the process. Don't simply copy surface details.

Here's what you should do:

• Copy a  drawing or two from your favorite  cartoonist.
• Then test yourself by drawing something that looks similar to what they would do to see what you've picked up.

Like this...I'll take the public domain character Super Mouse and draw him. The style is appealing and cartoony.

The first thing I need to do is to deconstruct the character from the inside out:

In the drawing above I made assumptions about his construction. I also looked for rhythmic connections. All this while  noting, comparing and measuring features against one another.

Once  I thought I had what I needed, I went in and drew a final line on top of my rough. I drew this digitally so I just used a new layer, but if you want to do the same thing with analog tools, use tracing paper or another sheet of normal copy paper using a light box:

The final line is below.  I even went so far as to try to match the line quality. It was tricky because the original was probably inked with a brush or quill:

Once the copying was done, I decided to test myself to see if I learned anything.  I decided to now draw a new characters based on the construction, style and design aesthetics of what I just copied. I wanted to see if I could capture something that had the look and feel of Super Mouse without it being Super Mouse.

Here's what I did:

Once you're done with that and are satisfied, try this experiment.  Pick another cartoonist who has a very different style from the other that you also like.  Do the same with them.

For example, if you where copying a Manga artist, copy someone more western, like Jim Davis.  You'd be surprised how much copying someone so different opens up your drawing skills.

Trouble?

Q: If I'm good at copying, when should I stop copying and start drawing my own stuff?

A: Now. You should have never stopped doing your own work.  Copying isn't the goal, drawing well is.  Copying is just study.  It can be fun but the point is to be able to draw on your own.

Drawing your own stuff is the best way to see how much you've learned from your studying.

Pro Tip

If you're not exactly sure what you ought to try copying, here's a short list of ideas:

• The Masters - Whether it's Leonardo Di Vinci, Michael Angelo, Peter Paul Rubens, you'd be surprised how much better you're cartoons will be if you capture some of qualities of the greatest draftsman that have ever lived.
• Your favorite artists - Even if you don't want to draw like them, you may want to try copying their work.
• People who you would like to draw like or sort of like - This one is  no brainer. You want your drawings to have a certain look, copy the guy who most has that look.
• Great cartoonists -  Wally Wood, Gary Larson, Sergio Aragonés, Bill Waterson, Dan Decarlo, you can't go wrong with copying the artists that mastered their craft.

Basically, anyone who's style you want to "own." Anyone who's drawings you want to make a part of you.

Questions?

I can’t help you if you don’t ask.

What’s your burning copying questions?

Is there something you’ve always wanted to know about copying? Ask.

I’ll give you my best answer and, who knows,  probably write a post about it.

Leave any comments and questions in the comments below.

Or better yet, sign up to receive more information via e-mail. You’ll get extra tips and advice.  You can ask me questions that way also.

Use The Rhythm Luke

You start all your cartoons with a gesture.  They're well designed. You've learned to draw forms and you're now drawing everything using compound forms. Yet... even though your cartoons have dynamic poses and are solid, they STILL look a little stiff.

In fact, the more you construct and add compound forms, the more wooden your cartoons look.  They look like the forms they're made up of and not organic at all.

What's happening?!

It's the last ingredient to good drawing. It's one of the hardest concepts to pin down, and I'm going to try to explain it to you.

After this lesson is done, you'll know everything you need to know to draw three dimensional looking, solid cartoons that feel organic and flow.

In this lesson, you'll learn all about rhythm.

Let's get started.

What Exactly is Rhythm?

Rhythm is like The Force,  it surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.

My Drawing Sifu Steve Huston once said,

"Rhythm is movement over the forms."

What all this basically comes down to is a simple rule of thumb that goes something like this:

"All lines in a drawing somehow connect to other lines of the same drawing.  Either, through visible connecting lines or invisible connecting lines."

Every line should lead or connect to some other line within a subject (and sometimes even outside of it.)

This isn't an absolute "rule," but it's a great guide, when your work doesn't look unified, and is disconnected.

All of this, sound weird and abstract so here's some concrete examples of what I mean. Say we have this drawing:

This drawing has abstract invisible connecting lines that unify it so it all seems connected and organic.  The drawing below makes these lines visible:

Almost every single line in the drawing is somehow connected to some other line in the drawing.

When drawing details, it's not what you put in but WHY you put it in. Does it connect to some other part of the drawing? Does it reinforce the rhythm, the forms or both?

This concept not only works within the inner workings of a character, but it can also work within the composition of a picture as a whole.

Here's what I mean, if you take a drawing like this:

You can see that most of the lines in the drawing lead into and point to other lines within the drawing, making it more unified:

As I said above, "Rhythm is like The Force,  it surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together."

It's an abstraction. It's a great way to check your drawing for unity.

In the drawings above, I didn't set out to create the rhythms consciously. Not at first.

I found these lines after the fact. After I constructed the compound forms.  I then went over and looked for lines that might connect.   Sometimes I followed line from one figure or shape to another.  Sometimes I found soft shapes that were created because of invisible connections.

There is no rule about connecting the lines. You're just looking for lines that naturally seem to lead into one another.

If you find that you have very few lines that do so, then you know you're doing something wrong.

Sometimes you'll find that everything naturally connects but your finished clean up lines are drawn in such a way that they ruin the natural flow.  In cases like this, adjust the lines to work with the rhythms rather than against them.

Your drawings will be better off for it.

Example

So let's take a look at rhythm in action.

A fantastic example of rhythm used in design is in the animated movie, The Secret of Kells. The movie's characters are a fantastic mix of Celtic designs, illuminated manuscript design, medieval art, and cartoons.

The characters look very graphic in nature yet every line they're made up of seems to rhythmically interconnect. They're pretty amazing designs.

Below is a drawing I've done, of St. Francis, in the lyrical style of the movie:

See if you can find how most of the lines connect to one another.

I highly recommend you do an internet search of the movie to really get a sense of what it looks like. Especially in motion. It's pretty amazing.

It really illustrates the beauty of rhythm in action.

Your Turn

This exercise is simple. Take the character you've designed in the previous lesson and simply apply the rhythm rule of thumb to it. Which, if you remember is:

"All lines in a drawing somehow connect to other lines of the same drawing.  Either, through visible connecting lines or invisible connecting lines."

So follow these steps:

1.  Rough out some poses.

2. Lay another piece of paper over your roughs. Either using a lightbox or tracing paper. Find the rhythms in your roughs.  If you can't seem to find many, make them up.

If doing so makes it feel very artificial it's because IT IS.  Most of the lines you put down, you didn't intend to connect to one another.  Your going out of your way to force them to connect somehow. Try to find ways they can connect.

3. Lay down yet another piece of paper over your roughs. Now that you have the rhythms figured out draw the final clean line of the drawing, trying to keep the rhythmic connections you've created, somewhat, intact.

The outcome should look something like this:

Compare the final drawing above with the original rough.  You will see how the rhythm lines I drew influenced the final lines

The point of this exercise is to condition you so that you don't have to artificially look for rhythmic connections in your drawing. You want to do this as often as you can with your drawings so that eventually, you'll just naturally make your drawings rhythmical without needing to go through all the steps.

Trouble?

Q: I don't quite get it. Are you saying that every single line I draw HAS to connect to some other line within my drawing?

A: No, not EVERY line, but try to get as many as you can.  The more the better.

Pro Tips

If all this seem a bit odd, it's because it is. Rhythm is a unique idea. It's taught differently by different teachers.

The one thing that all the methods have in common is their purpose. Namely, to make unitive holistic drawings.

The truth is, drawing is a bunch of little drawings, all put together to make a larger drawing. This is as true for a single cartoon character as it is for a whole composition. The trick to rhythm is to not make it look that way.

Keep practicing, don't give up.

Questions?

I can’t help you if you don’t ask.

What’s your burning rhythm questions?

Is there something you’ve always wanted to know about rhythm? Ask.

I’ll give you my best answer and, who knows,  probably write a post about it.

Leave any comments and questions in the comments below.

Or better yet, sign up to receive more information via e-mail. You’ll get extra tips and advice.  You can ask me questions that way also.

Making Your Cartoons Look Professional - Cartooning Design

You're comfortable drawing.  If fact, drawing hasn't ever been a problem for you.  You enjoy drawing quite a bit.

Thing is, when you look at your drawings and you look at more experienced artists, your stuff doesn't quite look right.

When you copy cartoons, they look good, but when you draw your own, there's something off about them.  You're not sure what you're missing.

What's the biggest thing that separates what you do and what they do? How can you take your cartoon drawing to the next level?

Applying the principles of good design.

In this lesson I'll show you what design principles you're missing.  There's three things you need to keep in mind when designing cartoon characters.

I'll go over each one and show you how to work with them so that you can bring your cartoons to the next level.

By the time you're done with this lesson, you'll know what you need to do to draw cool looking, and well designed, cartoon characters.

Let's get started.

The 3 Things You're Missing

To simply sum it all up, in order to make your cartoons really sing, you need to apply these three things.

• Principles of Design
• Compound Forms
• Simplicity

Let's take a closer look at each one of these idea. Starting with...

Principles of Design

THE secret to GOOD design is harmonizing contrast and balance <= CLICK TO TWEET

EVERYTHING that you will EVER draw, can be broken down into a flat, two dimensional shape. <= CLICK TO RETWEET

These are the key principles of good design. I wrote about these two principle in two earlier lessons on this site:

Stick figures, with style! Basic design and

Design Simple Cartoon Characters from Flat Shapes

You can read the full version of this info there but, I'll sum it up here in a condescend version.

When we create a character, it’s all about creating balanced contrast with the spacing of the proportions.

What is contrast?

When talking about drawing, contrast is:

• Dark against light values or lines.
• Straight lines against  “c” curve or “S” curve lines
• Big against little shapes
• Uniform patterns against chaotic marks.
• A color against it’s opposite color on the color wheel

Contrast is good because it adds interest and dynamism to a drawing.  It gives a drawing tension that draws the eye. But it can also be unnerving and just plain ugly.

What is balance?

When talking about drawing, balance is almost what you’d think it is:

• Making things seem even
• Placing things on a page so that it doesn’t seem off kilter
• Making things uniform.

Our instinct is to make what we draw balanced and uniform.  Balanced, uniform drawings are automatically appealing to us.  A perfectly uniform and balanced drawing is often seen as an ideal. They can also be VERY boring and uninteresting.

Good design is when you deliberately take contrasting things, and you place them together in such a balanced way, that they seem like they BELONG together. In other words, you’ve managed to harmonize them. This causes them to not only be appealing, but interesting as well.

A good design works well when you end up with the appeal of balance, and the interest of contrast, without keeping the dullness of balance and the ugliness of contrast.

As you design characters don't forget to keep these other two principles in mind:

1. Spacing contrast and
2. Size contrast.

Spacing contrast – Means you make sure you space out the shapes in interesting ways. Trying to avoid spacing that is too balanced which would make the design dull.

Size contrast – Simply means your trying to put shapes of different sizes next to each other to create interest.

For example, in the figure above, in point 1, the face favors the bottom half of the head shape and is not perfectly centered.  Also even the mouth itself favors one side of the face to another.  All the features are also very close together rather than being spaced evenly apart.

In points 2 and 3 we see an example of size contrast. The size of the circle shaped head is larger than the rectangle of the body which it’s connected to.  The body is not only proportionally smaller, it’s also smaller in width.

Points 3, 4, and 5 also contrast. Notice the length of the arm and hand are longer the body, and obviously thinner.

Point 4 and 5 contrast, not only in size but also in shape.  Now, this isn’t something that is done all the time but sometimes, a round shape next to a hard edged shape is a good mix and contrasts well too.

Point 6. The spacing of the legs here is something well worth pointing out.  They are NOT evenly spaced out. By which I mean I favored the outer part of the body to attach them to rather then where the green arrows are actually located.  The reason for this is, again, to add interest

Again, for a more in depth view on this subject, read the earlier lessons linked above.

Compound Forms

There's a reason why we learned to draw basic forms in Lesson 2.  Once you have a grasp of those forms you can build upon that knowledge to create "Compound Forms."

Compound forms are basic forms that have been combined to create a more complex 3D form.

Imagine you're basic forms are made out of clay and you sculpt them together to make a new shape while still retaining some of the original forms.

They're what many cartoon characters are actually made out of.  Often simple cartoons may not be as simple as you might think.

Some cartoons are really quite complicated, while others are not.  It depends on style.

We're going to be focusing on the slightly more complicated type here.

So what do compound forms look like? Well here's some examples of what I'm talking about.

A cartoon cat, might look like this:

The drawings above are simple compound forms. The most complicated part being the attachment of the mussel to the head, as well as the "cheeks," of the cats that have them.

Notice the eyes are not merely "painted on," but are 3D forms inserted into the larger head form.

And when talking about more advanced human head shapes. You might get something like this:

I deliberately designed these head to be far more complex than the cat heads. I wanted to show you how elaborate compound forms can get.  It's also a good example of the complexity of a human head and why some cartoon heads are harder to draw than others.

The heads above are a combination of wedges, spheres, and cubes, all combined to make the head shapes.

Drawing compound forms is an essential skill to learn to take your work to the next level.

Anchoring Features to Your Forms by Creating Topography

Something critical to keep track of when creating these compound forms is the topography of the form you've created.

Make sure to map this out clearly, either on the page itself or in your head.

The reason  for this is that any details you place on top of your figure needs to follow and reinforce the topography. If it doesn't your drawing runs the danger of looking flat where you want to have solidity.

You also need to understand the topography if you plan to model your drawing using tonal shading or coloring.

Here's what I mean:

Okay, perhaps the middle one is a bit much.

Still, you really do need to be able to understand your character's topography as well as possible at some level. Like I said before, you don't need to draw it all out, but you do need to know it. It will make your characters look more solid in the long run and it will help you be able to draw them from different angles.

Simplify

"Look at the detail!"

Beginning artist are often more obsessed with details and textures than good drawing.

Too often as draftsmen, we get caught up in the complex and the details.  The more textures the better, the more bumps the better, the more colors the better, the more MORE the better.

Not necessarily.

It's much more difficult to draw something simple than something complex. There are great draftsmen and cartoonist that do the detail thing really well.  They're usually really good at drawing to begin with.

BUT there are far more bad draftsmen and cartoonists who use details and textures to cover up their bad drawing and what they don't know how to draw.

You really don't want to be that person.

When drawing cartoons don't overdo the compound forms.  Us as few forms as you can, to get the idea across that you want.

The last thing you want is for your cartoon to get overwhelmingly "lumpy bumpy."

Below are two examples:

I deliberately drew as many bumps and complexity as I could in drawing 1.

With drawing 2. I kept it as simple and a clear I possible.  I could have even simplified it more, in fact.

As you can see, 1.  is all visual "noise." It's difficult to focus on anything. It's all over the place.

2. Flows together more harmoniously.

If we were to only see the silhouette of these arms...

You can tell that drawing 2. is an arm while it's difficult to tell what the hell 1. is. Clarity is lost.

When you draw, ask yourself, how can I make the simplest statement? How can I minimize the amount of lines here?  Can I do this with only straights and "C" curves?

When it comes to drawing, less is often more.

There IS a place for detail, texture and complexity.  Mastering simplicity will help you know when those things can best be used and when they can be left out.  It's not what you put in that makes your drawings sophisticated, but what you leave out.

Examples

In combination these three idea make some very cool looking cartoons. Let's look at some examples.

The drawing below is basically lifted from the model sheet of a very famous looney bunny, but I changed him into a monkey for copyright reasons:

Looney Tunes style characters are generally made out of very basic forms:

Although the hands and the faces tend to be where the compound forms make an appearance. Usually, this style of cartoon has more complex faces than you might think. It's what makes them expressive:

Once you have all those forms down, you build the details of the characters on top of them:

The Looney Tunes style is a very flexible cartoon style.  Deep understanding of anatomy is not necessary to pull off a cool looking, and fun cartoon.  It helps but it's not necessary.

You can often come up with some fun and interesting characters simply by playing around and experimenting with compound forms.

But if you want to make even MORE advanced cartoons...

The examples below are of the Draw Fu characters.  They're here to both represent, "Disney style" as well as slightly cartoony "comic book style."

I did this because these characters are a little bit of both.

Beginning with a line drawing of Brush Lee below:

Brush can be broken down into some basic forms although when it comes to the hands, feet, and face, the compound forms really start kicking in:

These basic form are just the beginning. Once you have them down, that's when you start breaking up the forms into much more sophisticated designed, compound forms:

This level of cartooning requires you to have some understanding of human anatomy.  It's the reason why the Disney animation studio used to hire people based on portfolios full of figure drawings and NOT full of cartoons.

This is where observational drawing, representational drawing and cartooning meet.

Here's a closer look at a head drawn in this style:

The basic forms that make up a head like this are very simple:

Once you get into refining the compound forms, the head becomes far more complex:

Just because a cartoon is simple looking, doesn't mean it lacks sophistication. This style of cartoons require a deeper understanding of anatomy and structure than you might think.

Only by understanding certain anatomical principles will you be able to break down a cartoony head, in this style, into it's compound forms more easily.

I'm showing you these more advanced set of examples to help you see how far you can take this compound form concept.  Also, if you're having trouble drawing in this style, you now know what kind of knowledge it takes to be able to pull it off.

Not to worry. In later Draw Fu levels we will begin to examine more advanced anatomical drawing.  For now, simply be aware how compound forms create more solid looking cartoons.

See if you can experiment in more simple styles.

Exercises

Now it's your turn. Come up with a few characters made up of compound forms.

1. Create a character,
2. Break down it's compound forms making sure you have it's topography worked out well.

Here's what I mean.  Let's take the simple form characters from the example I created in Lesson 2.  This one in particular:

Let's start by coming up with a purpose for him.  He looks stocky and tough so maybe he can be a fighter of some sort.

Since this is Draw Fu, let's give him a martial arts archetype. I'll take Bolo Yeung  from Enter the Dragon as my inspiration:

Start with a very basic lite lay in.  This doesn't have to be pretty and it can even be flat and graphic.  What  you're doing is creating a rough road map or your drawing.  You're placing the pieces where you want to take the drawing.

Erasing and adjusting is fine, but keep in mind, you're not looking for perfection:

You can eventually take this and make it something tighter. Add a bit more detail.  Even make it look finished.  The purpose of the first sketch is NOT to have a final drawing.  It's meant to give you something to create compound forms from.

Let me show you.

Once you have the rough lay in, you then go in and work out the compound forms you will use to solidify the drawing, over your lay in. Ideally you'd do this on a separate piece of paper using a lightbox or tracing paper.

This is done in case you mess up or you don't like some of your choices.  It's easier to erase the construction without erasing the lay in, if it's on a different piece of paper:

You should end up with something like this:

You can then start working out more complex compound forms, like the face.  This might take a few tries as well. Again, you may use a separate piece of paper. If you do, it would probably be because you're still not sure what the face would look like and it's easier to change stuff around or just start over if it's on another sheet:

The final finished drawing would then be done on yet another sheet of paper.  Yeah, it's a lot of paper, but at first it's best that way.

By the time you're done, you should have a solid looking design. When I drew the drawing below, I kinda drew the whole process at once on one sheet of paper. This is why you can see all the extra line work on the drawing. Eventually, you'll be do this as well.

I usually tend to use multiple sheets of paper now, when I want to make adjustments and fix stuff I don't like in my roughs:

Even if you decide to draw the whole thing in one drawing as I did, you should then take another piece of paper and draw over your character using a lightbox or tracing paper, drawing only it's compound forms. This is to make absolutely sure that you know exactly what they are and how they work.

Otherwise, you're cheating yourself and you're not really learning anything.

Trouble?

Q: I'm having trouble starting. I don't know where to begin.  How would I go about starting a new design?

A: There's two ways.  The first way is simply to look up reference.  Go online and search images for people or animals that are similar to what you want to draw. If you're going to draw cats, look up cats.  If you're going to draw a fat guy, look up fat guys. That's where I tend to begin.

Pre-visualing a direction this way helps a lot.  Sometimes when the possibilities are endless, it helps to reduce them.

Once you've done that though, that's when you go back and remember your design principles.  Start flat.  Play around with flat shapes. At first, you don't want to worry about drawing 3D forms, you want to get good design.  Simply come up with varying flat shape designs and experiment.

It's the reason I was able to explain design with such simple elements in earlier lessons.

The example below is the many variations of Brush Lee I drew before finally finding a version I liked.  Notice there's lot's of versions.  I didn't get it right the first time.  I had to draw lots of different heads. It's okay not to get it right the first time. In fact, assume it's the norm. Getting it right the first time is actually an exception.

Here's a line up of all the flat shapes that make up the Draw Fu characters:

Once you have something you like, that's when you start applying compound forms to your flat design.

If you're having trouble coming up with unique original shapes, it's okay to copy other artist's shapes and riff off of them.  If you do this enough, you will eventually learn to create your own.

I will be dealing with copying in Lesson 6.

Pro Tip

There are a lot of books out there about drawing people with certain proportions.  They say things like, "the idealized person is so many heads tall," and they break down the human body.

These are great guideline to keep in mind BUT, when drawing cartoons, try to avoid those kind of proportions like the plague.

They make really generic and boring looking cartoon characters.  Instead, use those kind of guides as things to avoid.  If an idealized person is eight heads tall, make your character three or eleven heads tall.

If the body of an idealized character's proportions are perfectly divided in half at the crotch, put your character's crotch closer to 1/4 or 3/4.

Observe real people and notice how far from ideal they are.  Draw THAT instead.  Cartoons are more fun to look at that way.

Questions?

I can’t help you if you don’t ask.

What’s your burning under compound form questions?

Is there something you’ve always wanted to know about compound forms? Ask.

I’ll give you my best answer and, who knows,  probably write a post about it.

Leave any comments and questions in the comments below.

Or better yet, sign up to receive more information via e-mail. You’ll get extra tips and advice.  You can ask me questions that way also.

The Key to Flow, Power and Dynamism - Mastering Gesture

Your drawings are solid but all you're characters look like robots.  They're stiff and rigid.

They look like a bunch of posed dolls on the page.  They lack power, emotion, dynamism.

They're nothing natural about the way they're posed.  You thought that adding solidity to you're drawings would make you're cartoons come to life but it's done the opposite.

It's made them more lifeless. What now?  How can you give your drawings life and energy? What's missing?

Don't worry. I knew this would happen.  You'll find that it will happen quite a lot as you learn new structural drawing techniques.

It's okay, because this lesson will help you solve this problem every time it appears.

This lesson will teach you the keys to drawing energetic, dynamic drawings full of life and power.

Let's get started.

The Key to Dynamic Drawings

The best drawing books and teachers, start with the information I'm going to tell you about right now.

The first thing I learned in figure drawing classes, was what I'm going to teach you in this lesson.

This, of course begs the question, why didn't I start with this information first myself?  After all, this is the very first thing I tend to do when I draw anything.

The answer is simply that you wouldn't want to know this information until you needed it.  You wouldn't have seen how useful this information is until now.

What I'm talking about, is gesture drawing. When I was taught gesture drawing I found it annoying.  I was drawing scribbles and wasn't given any time to finish a drawing.

I would end up with pages and pages of ugly drawing I couldn't show anyone. None of the drawings were finished or pretty. But once I was taught more solid kind of drawing, I realized how indispensable gesture drawing is to the preliminary process.

Why? What exactly is gesture drawing? What is it good for?

Gesture drawing is the KEY to giving your drawings life, energy and dynamism.

Perhaps I should start describing gesture by what it's not.

Gesture drawing is NOT:

• A pretty finished drawing
• A tight drawing
• Stiff
• Labored over
• Full of details or textures
• Thoughtless

Gesture drawing IS:

• Fast and loose
• Expressive
• Dirty
• Often scribbly
• Full of passion
• Often better than a final drawing
• Unappreciated by beginning artists, amateur artists, and most audiences.

Here's some examples of gesture drawings done with a ballpoint pen. These were done during a figure drawing session:

If this looks like a bunch of scribbles to you, you're mostly right. Gesture drawing is often very scribbly. Yet, those scribbles are often very clear, to the point, and full of life.

This is because the point of a gesture drawing is to capture life, energy, power and forces. It's not meant to be a final drawing. You're looking for the spirit of what you see.

All these things are very nebulous concepts and ideas.  Gesture is less about structure and more about expression.  It's about feelings.

Thoughtfully, examined feelings.

The purpose of which is to give life to a final drawing. Without first capturing the essence of a pose or power of an object (yes, other things besides figures can have gestures), you will end up with lifeless drawings.

Gesture drawing is the first thing you ought to do before drawing anything.  Every drawing you wish to finish should be based on the foundation of a great gesture drawing.

Yes, including cartoons.  What exactly goes into a good gesture drawing and how does it apply to cartoons?

There are three big ideas you're looking for when drawing gestures

• The longest line or biggest sweep of the drawing
• The forces at work in the drawing
• The movement between the forms in your drawing

The Longest Line or Biggest Sweep

If you were to only draw one line that represents the essence of your drawing what would it be?  When you can answer that question, you've found that longest line or biggest sweep of your drawing.

It's usually, but not always. a line you can draw from the head to where the foot makes contact with the ground.  Although, sometimes it's the area in a pose where the most force is emphasized.

Here's what I mean by longest line. Below are some simple cartoon gesture drawings:

In each of these poses, you can find one sweeping that defines the major emphasis of the pose:

It's the first thing I think about when approaching a rough preliminary drawing.

The Forces at Work

Forces are working on bodies no matter what pose we are drawing.  Most often, from gravity.

There's always some element of stress in any pose you draw. That's what I mean by "forces." Find the stress point and emphasize it, exaggerate it and make it clear.

Drawing forces can take many forms. Ask yourself:

• What is getting pulled?
• What is getting pinched?
• What is getting stretched?
• What is getting pushed?
• Where is the energy coming from?
• How can I push or emphasize this further? How can I make these things more pronounced and therefore clearer.

For example, say your drawing a contrapposto pose. When a person stands, they often favor one leg over another. This causes one hip to be higher than the other. In order to maintain balance, the body counters by making the opposite shoulder higher while making the other lower.  Like this:

In action poses body parts get pulled and pushed, while everything else compensates. Keep this in mind as you draw:

The Movement Between the Forms

We are soft creature made of water.  As such, our bodies tend to flow and interconnect. Keep this mind when gesture drawing.

Be aware of how forms flow in and out of each other.  Sometimes it's seen through big long sweeps, and sometimes it's seen through counter balancing curves.

Here's what I mean:

Gesture in Action

Here's some examples of other types of gesture drawings.

The gesture drawing below is a study I made, copying gesture drawings from one of my favorite artists, Frank Frazetta.

I also copied a gesture drawing from head Disney animator Glen Keane.  Below you'll find a copy I made off of a gesture drawing he drew of Tarzan catching Jane, from a scene he animated.

There's also a slightly more advance form of gesture drawing that aren't as scribbly.  Below you'll find some slightly "cleaner" gesture drawings I drew during figure drawing.

But how do you use gesture for your finished drawings?

Well there are two ways.  First you can use them to explore different poses quickly. This is done in order to find the best poses to use in a drawing.

Below is an example of some gesture pose studies I copied from Frank Frazetta. He drew them on a separate sheet of scrap paper before he found the poses he wanted to use in his painting.

The other way you use gesture drawing is as a preliminary base for your final drawing.

For example, below you will see my drawing process.  The very first thing I do is draw a gesture drawing of the pose I want my character to be in.

This may take some tries, depending on how happy I am with the pose.  Similar to the Frazetta drawings above.

Getting the right gesture is important.  Making sure to push the pose as much as possible is critical.  You will see why with the drawing below:

Once I have the pose I want, I do another pass over my gesture drawing, applying structure to the drawing, clarifying what I want.

But notice that, doing this pass stiffens the pose a bit.  Some of the energy of the original gesture drawing is lost:

After solidifying the drawing, I add the final line to it. In this step, I still make some adjustments.

Again, just as before, adding the final line stiffens the drawing a bit more.

I'm pointing this out so you can understand the importance of making the gesture more extreme and pushed.

The final drawing process slowly stiffens the drawing up.  If you have a very pushed gesture, by the time you're done, the stiffened drawing you end up with should feel full of energy.

Your Turn

It's time you gave it a try.

Exercise #1

The best way to really start figuring out gesture is to be observant.  To do this, find:

• Photos,
• Comics,
• Animated cartoons,
• Drawings or
• Paintings...

...that you think have a lot of action or character and draw gestures from them.

Start by finding the main action line. At first, you don't want to do anything but find that line.  Like this:

Photos by http://pixabay.com/en/users/nuzree-27365/ buy him a coffee.

It's harder than you may think. These may take you a few tries.  I had to try about three to five times on each pose before I got a line I thought felt right.

Do as many different poses as you need to until you get comfortable. If you really need a number, I'll just say, do 20 different poses. Yeah, that's a lot of reference to look up.

At the end of this lesson, I'll provide links to sites you can use to help with these exercises in the "Pro Tips" section.

Exercise #2

Next, step it up. Set a timer for 30 seconds.

Then look at your reference and draw it's gesture.

Like this:

It's really tough.   You'll find you'll need to do a few just to get warmed up.

The point is to find the essence of the pose. Do not copy the drawing. You don't need a finished drawing.

If time runs out, STOP drawing and move on to the next drawing.

Keep the three focuses in mind:

1. Longest line,
2. Forces,
3. Movement between forms.

These exercises are not meant to end with pretty pictures. The timer is there to force you to look for gesture. It doesn't give you the time to draw details.

Once you feel more comfortable with the 30 seconds, you can do the exercise again but this time, give yourself a whole minute, then two.  It will feel as if you have all the time in the world.

Exercise #3

Finally, once you've done enough, try it on your own. Using a colored pencil, start a drawing, gesture first.  Think about the emotion and forces of the pose you want. Once you have that part of the drawing down, draw a cleaner line over that rough drawing, perhaps using one of the characters you drew in the previous shape drawing exercises.

Like this:

Trouble?

Q: Whenever I draw roughs, they are REALLY rough and dark.  So dark that, when I put a tighter line on my drawing, it's difficult to see them.

My drawings are just a dark mess.

On the other hand, I'm not comfortable drawing lightly.  When I really get into gesture, I naturally draw darker lines.

What can I do so my dark gesture drawings don't overwhelm the clarity of my tighter line?

A: There's a simple trick to this. I learned it from a Disney clean up artist when they were still doing hand drawn animated features.

What you need is a kneaded eraser.

Draw it as rough as you like and lighten it up with a kneaded eraser.

It's really very simple.  When you want to lighten up the drawing, roll the kneaded eraser over the drawing as if you were rolling dough with you're hand.

Like this:

The eraser will pick up most of the lines leaving you with a lighter but still visible rough to work with.  Simply do this until you get to the level of lightness you want your under drawing to have.

If you need an even lighter line, then simply rub the Kneaded eraser over the drawing until the lines become even lighter.

Pro Tip

If you're looking for good websites to get pose reference for your exercises, here's some links that might help you out.

As of the time of this writing, none of these websites contain nudity.

• http://photo-reference-for-comic-artists.com/photos/freeSample

• https://www.pinterest.com/bentolmie/action-poses/
• https://www.pinterest.com/riosanimation/actionsposing-thumbnails/
• https://www.pinterest.com/writeandcreate/art-reference-action-poses/
• https://www.pinterest.com/mikakurkilahti7/action-poses/
• https://www.pinterest.com/Maxinehazelwood/actions-poses/

Practicing Your Draw Fu Forms

You can draw cartoons but there's something missing.  They look odd.  Not like the stuff you see in animated cartoons or your favorite comics.

What are you missing? What do you need to do?

You want to start drawing cartoons that look more solid.  Cartoons with "dimension."  Something that compliments your new perspective skills.

If you create three dimensional environments, it would be nice to put three dimensional characters in them.  The problem is, where do you start?

Well, you start here.  Now that you know what you know about lines and flat shapes, it's time to build upon that knowledge to add a new dimension.

Just as you did with those beginner's exercises, here you will need to get comfortable working with three dimensional shapes. This is the stuff you need to know to take your character drawing to the next level.

In the following lesson, you will learn the four basic forms that can be modified to create the basic structure of just about any cartoon.  They can even be used to create naturalistic drawings.

We'll finally get into the stuff you need to know to make your drawing look much more professional.

Let's begin.

Three Dimensional Forms are Like Sentences.

If drawing is like writing, lines are like the A, B, C, and Shapes are like words, then three dimensional forms are like Sentences.

To really be able to communicate in the clearest natural way, you need to learn three dimensional drawing forms.

There are four forms that, in combination, make up all three dimensional drawing:

• Spheres
• Cylinders
• Cubes
• Wedges

Just about every basic, flat, three dimensional shape can be given dimension to become one of these three forms.  Remember, the illusion of space is just that, an illusion. You're not drawing three dimensional forms, you're drawing flat shapes on a piece of paper.

That doesn't mean you can't trick the eye into thinking it's seeing something more dimensional.  It's best to start thinking about your drawings as a flat graphic design which you add dimension to.  This will make you're drawings more pleasing to the eye in the long run.

Everything you can see and draw can be broken down into these four basic forms.  Although, sometimes they may be a complex combination of the forms. This is why it's so important to learn to draw them.

Let's take these four basic forms and see how they can be developed from flat graphic shapes:

Spheres - This one is pretty self explanatory, Circles or ellipses can be given dimension and turned into Spheres or modified Spheres. Spheres are very versatile but they can also be tricky to use.

They don't have corners which makes it more difficult to give them direction. You can usually do so by defining the radius of the outer surface of the Sphere.

Traditionally this is done by drawing the diameter across the circumference vertically and horizontally across the Sphere so you can clearly see it's dimension.

Cylinders -Squares and modified squares can be made into Cylinders.  This all depends on your intention.

Simply decide which direction the Cylinder is being seen from and add the circumference lines reinforcing the direction. Cylinders can be the most handy form to use in the preliminary drawing process.

They come in handy when you don't want to get too caught up in detail.  They're ideal for drawing organic long forms and are great for defining gesture and rhythm.

Cubes - Cubes and modified Cubes are often created off of squares and rectangles as well.  They can be the most useful of all the forms.

Cubes are the easiest forms to get the illusion of dimension with. Because of this, Cubes can also be used to better clarify the perspective of forms that don't have corners, like Sphere modified Sphere and Cylinders.

This can be done by simply drawing a Cube around the corner less form. Whenever you're unsure about the dimension of a soft corner-less form, convert it into a Cube or modified Cube.

The one drawback to cubes is that they are often stiff and inorganic.

Wedges - Wedges are odd forms.  They're usually created from both cubes and triangles, depending on the intent.  A wedge is basically a cube, cut in half diagonally  across two of it's corners.

Most often, wedges are found combined with the other forms above creating a complex compound form.  You'd be surprised how handy this form can be.

The reason to learn to draw these forms well is so you could later combine them all into complex  compound forms that lead to more organic naturalistic looking drawings.

Examples of Using  These Simple Forms in Action

Let's see what can be done with these basic forms.

In the 1920s, many cartoons where often drawn by using two of the basic forms: spheres and cylinders.  The result was something that looked a lot like this:

Here's my very rough under drawing so you can see the circles and cylinders I used:

Now a days with more stylized video games, such as Minecraft and Lego video games, we can have more blocky looking cartoon characters. Like this:

If you're into drawing environments, you can even use the forms to draw things like bushes and trees out of these basic forms:

Here's my rough under drawing, so you can see the cylinders and circles more clearly:

As you can see, these forms, at their most basic, can be very versatile.

Your Exercises

Alright, now that you know the importance of these forms, it's time to do some yourself.  Instead of simply drawing spheres, cubes and stuff, I thought it would be more fun to actually be able to have something cool to show for your effort. Let's start:

Drawing Spheres

Spheres are, more often than not, used as the basis for most heads.  So why not start by filling up a page with goofy drawings of cartoon heads?

• Simply draw a circle or modified circle of some kind.
• Draw the circumference lines somewhere through the circle, creating a sphere.
• The XZ axis is your eye line. It's where you will place your eyes.
• The YZ axis is your guide for the nose and the direction the character is facing.

Just draw dots for the eyes and another sphere for the nose. Play around with the placement of the XZ axis. It doesn't have to be directly in the center. Also, play around with the orientation of the sphere.

Turn it so it you're looking up at it, down at it, seeing it at 3/4,...etc.

Your page of cartoon heads, should look something like this:

This might be tricky at first. If you're having trouble, start simple.  Don't get fancy. Simply draw a round sphere and place everything in the center.  Slowly make your way to fancier heads as you go.

Most important part of all though, is to have fun.

Drawing Cylinders

Now it's time to add an element.  Let's keep it simple at first.

• Draw a sphere adding the circumference lines.
• Then attach a cylinder to the sphere, right underneath it.  To create a neck.
• For now, make sure to draw through your forms as if they were transparent. Also on the cylinders, draw circumference lines all the way across it so you can see the perspective.

You can draw a variety of head shapes and neck shapes until you feel comfortable.

It should look like this:

Once you're comfortable , you can add another element.

• Do the first three steps above,
• Now add another bigger cylinder under the neck cylinder.  This makes a body or torso for your figure.
• As before, draw through your forms and draw the circumference lines all across your cylinders.
• Don't be afraid to make it bend.

Vary the shapes and play around.  Get comfortable.

At first you're not going to want to make the cylinders bend, keep it simple and straight.  Once you get the hang of it, start playing around some more.

It should look something like this:

If you're comfortable with that, it's time to add the last element. Arms and legs.

• Do the first six steps above
• Now, simply add four cylinders attached to the torso for arms and legs.
• At this point you should be comfortable enough to make the cylinders you add bendy.
• If you wish, you can add spheres for hands and feet.

Like this:

Congratulations, you can draw spheres and cylinders.

Let's move on...

Drawing Cubes

With cubes we'll do a similar thing as what we did with the spheres.  Modified cubes also end up as heads.  In fact, a lot of what you use spheres and cylinders for can be given corners, squared off a bit and turned into cube in order to understand, their position in space better.

Here's your cube exercise:

• Simply draw a cube or modified cube of some kind.
• Draw the circumference lines somewhere through the cube,
• The XZ axis is your eye line. It's where you will place your eyes.
• The YZ axis is your guide for the nose and the direction the character is facing.

Just draw dots for the eyes and a sphere or cube for the nose. Play around with the placement of the XZ axis. It doesn't have to be directly in the center. Also, play around with the orientation of the cube.

Turn it so it you're looking up at it, down at it, seeing it at 3/4,...etc.

Your page of cartoon heads, should look something like this:

If you have not been practicing your perspective, your cubes will look very off.

If it helps, put a Horizon line and a Vanishing point on the page.  Ideally, you should be able to draw and turn a drawing of a cube in space without them.

See the previous post to see how this is done.

If you're having trouble, start simple.  Don't get fancy. Simple draw a cube facing one direction and place everything in the center.  Slowly make your way to fancier heads as you go.

Once you're comfortable doing this exercise, you can then start replacing the cylinder torsos from the earlier exercise with cubes. Like this:

You can keep the arms and legs as cylinders.  You'll find that doing this actually helps with the cylinder drawing as well.

Drawing Wedges

Finally we get to the wedges. Wedges tend to be sprinkled on a cartoon or drawing.  They rarely take center stage like Spheres, Cylinders and Cubes do.

Here's what I want you to do, simply add Wedges to the cartoons you are already making out of Spheres, Cylinders, and Cubes.

• Use Wedges for drawing noses.
• Use Wedges are shoulders,
• Add Wedge feet on your cartoons.

Here's an example of what I mean:

Okay there you have it.

It's important to become comfortable drawing these forms. Hopefully these exercises will make it fun to practice drawing them.

It wouldn't be a good idea to move on without feeling  you've got a handle on them.  From this point on, things get a bit more tricky and knowing  how to draw the forms will help out immensely.

Trouble?

Q: I don't understand. Every time I try to draw these forms they come out all wrong and messed up.  I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. What can I do?

A: If you're having trouble drawing these forms from your imagination, there is absolutely nothing wrong with using real objects as reference when drawing them.

Especially when you're starting out.

You want to draw a cube rotating in space? Find a small box or a Rubik's Cube and draw it.

Need help drawing cylinders? Find a can, a cup or a glass.

The point is, to start.  Get confidence. Get used to the forms.  The more you do the more your muscle memory will start taking over.

Don't be afraid to use reference. This is NOT "cheating." The best artist in the world use reference.

The problem is not UNDERSTANDING, the basic structures your referencing.  And THAT is what this lesson is helping you to do.

Often, when you see them draw something fantastic straight out of their imagination, it's because they've done so much drawing and studying from reality that it's become second nature.

Pro Tip

Observe how things around you can be broken down into the four basic forms.

When sketching complicated things, don't get caught up in surface detail, instead, try to take it all away so what you're left with is the basic form of what you're drawing.

Learning this skill is the key to drawing anything.

Arms are tubes, books are boxes, heads are spheres,..etc.

Practice seeing these things.

Questions?

I can’t help you if you don’t ask.

What’s your burning 3D forms questions?

Is there something you’ve always wanted to know about drawing forms? Ask.

I’ll give you my best answer and, who knows,  probably write a post about it.

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