Hi, and welcome to How to Draw Blitz Cartoons.
I'm Bruce Blitz, and together you and I are going to explore the fantastic, fun world
of drawing cartoons.
Now, in this course, we're going to deal with the basics of drawing cartoons.
We'll take it step by step, and soon you'll be creating your own little cartoon characters
in your own cartoon world.
Well, by the way, you're the boss.
You decide everything.
You design the character, set up a situation or gag, select a supporting cast of characters,
pick the props, camera angle, location, everything.
All you need is a pencil, some paper, and a little imagination.
So sit back and relax, and just let your mind go, because anything is possible in cartoons.
And what is a cartoon?
A cartoon by definition is a funny drawing expressing a funny idea.
I'll show you what I mean.
We have here a funny drawing, and it could stand by itself, but if we add just one more
element to this drawing, we can make it expressing a funny idea.
Let's do it.
Put some eyes here.
Now, I think you're ahead of me.
You might already know what I have in mind.
Now, it could even stand by itself now, but let's add one more thing to it.
Caption.
Throw some quick color into it.
Some red for the tongue.
And there you have it.
Next let's talk a little bit about what you're going to need in the way of art supplies to
get started.
Now, I've got some good news for you, because it's not going to cost you much.
All you'll need to get started is a pencil, some paper, and an eraser.
First the pencil.
I like the pencils with the softer leads best.
However, a good old number two school pencil will work fine.
Now as for paper, you're going to use a lot while learning, so buy the most inexpensive
paper you can, like a ream of bond paper or a pad of newsprint.
Now any eraser will do, although I prefer what is called a kneaded rubber eraser, because
it can be shaped to get into those hard to reach places, and best of all, it doesn't
leave crumbs.
Once you've laid out your cartoon and pencil, you might want to go over it with a black
felt tip marker to bring out the cartoon lines, make them more defined.
Now the selection is vast, so I suggest you go to the art store and experiment as to which
one you like best.
Now, I'm going to be working rather large here today, so I'm using a pretty thick point.
Now you're ready?
All right, let's get started.
First let's take a look at some cartoon heads.
To actually begin drawing a cartoon head, we're going to start with a shape.
Now I want you to notice how I make this shape.
By loosely moving my hand around before I even touch down, getting the feel, and then
lowering it to the paper, and then I have a loosely drawn shape.
You don't want to start drawing like this, doing one of these, because it's going to
get real contrived looking, and that's not what you want.
Okay, now we're going to loosely sketch in some guidelines.
Now using these guidelines, we're going to put in the features.
First the eyes, which is nothing more than a curve and two little dots.
Some eyebrows.
Now the nose, which I like to put underneath the eyes.
Then the mouth, I'm going to make that a wavy line, make it funny, with the tongue coming
out.
Two ears, one on each side.
I'm going to go over the chin with a little blocker of a line there.
Now the hair.
Now again, be loose because you want to get that spontaneous look to your work by making
these little squiggly lines.
Get your whole wrist into it.
Boom, like that.
A little neck.
That's basically it.
That's all there is to it.
How did yours come out, okay?
All right, now let's do it again.
Well, this time we're going to make it a little bit different.
First we're going to start with that shape.
Now when we put the guidelines in, we're going to think of that shape as an egg, a three-dimensional
object.
So when we put the lines in, and we're going to put them a little bit to the left, we would
have to be curving that line like this because it has roundness.
Imagine an egg or a balloon.
Now the other line, same thing.
Now using these lines again as guidelines, let's put in the features.
First the eyes, some eyebrows, a nose, a mouth.
Now this time we only see one ear because if his head is turned, his other ear wouldn't
be visible.
Let's define the chin again.
Some squiggly hair.
And there you have it.
That's all there is to it.
Let's put a neck on him, maybe a bow tie.
If we would have done two shapes like this and put those lines up top like this, and
this one down here like that, we could have made him looking up.
Here's the nose, we're down.
That's how you draw cartoon heads facing different ways.
Think of it as a balloon or an egg.
Put your lines in and go back over it and put your features in.
Now we've shown you how to draw the same character facing in different directions.
But to change that character, we go to our next lesson which is features and expressions.
In order to vary the cartoon head, we have to vary the shape that we start with, change
the guidelines and the features.
Now let's do one here.
Let's make this one a long thin one like that.
Let's make a short squat one over here.
Okay now let's go put the guidelines in.
First the vertical one.
This time we're looking straight at the character.
Now let's put this guideline in towards the top of the head.
This time let's put it down the lower half.
Okay let's go back over it now using this as guidelines and put the eyes in.
This time instead of making two circles, let's make two lines, making one a little bit different.
By varying it makes it a little funnier.
Okay let's put a nose in, a long thin nose this time.
Let's put the mouth down here instead of so close to the nose like.
Let's make a little squiggly line like that.
Little ears.
And for the hair let's make them bold except for a little bit on the side.
A couple little funny hairs up top.
Let's blacken the chin line a little bit.
There we've got one character there.
Now let's do a little short fat guy over here.
Okay we've got a funny little stubby nose.
Mouth.
Let's put glasses on him.
One eye up here, one eye down there.
The glasses resting on the ears.
This time let's give him wavy hair.
Eyebrows.
Chin line.
And then neck.
Put some eyebrows on this fellow too.
Okay you see by varying the shapes that we started with, the guidelines and drawing the
features in differently we've come up with two different characters.
Did you ever wonder how with all the millions of people there are in this world how we can
all look different?
I mean we all have the same features.
We all have eyes, nose, mouth and ears.
Yet we all look different.
Well the answer is it's because the size and relationship to each other that make us all
look different.
The same with cartoon heads.
Now a good way to practice cartoon heads is to get your piece of paper and draw about
25 circles on them.
Different shapes.
Throw the guidelines in differently and try to make all 25 heads look different.
That would be a good exercise.
Let's do it again.
Let's this time start with a squiggly shape instead of an oval or a circle.
There's one.
Now let's do a triangular shape.
Let's put the nose down here this time and let's make it a little small nose like that.
And let's put a mouth, let's put a mustache on this time.
A mouth, a smiling mouth with teeth.
Let's put some eyes in.
Let's see.
Some pretty large eyes.
Looking off to the right.
Some eyebrows.
Some ears.
Now for the hair.
Little hair coming out underneath the ear.
Blacken that line in.
And the neck.
Over here let's make a girl's face.
Let's put a small nose in.
Put the line of eyes over there.
Let's have her eyelids closed.
With a heavy line there like she's wearing mascara.
Some eyelashes.
Thin eyebrows.
Now I can notice here I drew the eyes and I left a little bit of white space in each
eye.
Sort of giving the impression that there's a, the shine, the highlight.
Now let's give her a smile.
Let's put some lipstick on her.
Round cheeks.
Let's go over the chin line.
Now for the hair.
Let's give her a big bushy head of hair.
Let's give her a neck.
Let's give her some beads.
Earrings.
And there you have it.
Now for some expressions.
And this is what will breathe life into your drawings.
This is what makes your cartoons appear to think.
Now we're going to start with anger.
Remember start with a shape.
Let's put a nose there.
Now if someone's angry what happens to their face?
Their mouth would be in a frown and the teeth would be showing.
Their lip would be out.
So let's make the teeth in.
Clenched.
And here's her ear.
And the eyes as before.
But now watch what just the eyebrows facing down like that does.
And let's give them some hair.
Now I'm going to introduce here what I call cartoon accessories and effects.
Now what we do here is to make him look angry.
That's angry.
But now watch.
If we just put a little sweat coming out of him.
Look how much more angry he appears.
Even some of these lines make it look like he's steaming mad.
That is anger.
Okay let's do another one.
Let's have this time the fellow hilarious.
Let's start with a shape.
This time let's do a triangular shape.
Okay now if someone's hilarious have the nose like that first and the mouth would be in
a big smiling shape like that.
Real big smile like that.
Teeth definitely showing.
Tongue way out.
Now this would all be painted black because it's inside the mouth and it would be dark.
Let's clean up this line around the tongue.
And the eyes would be squinted.
Eyebrows down.
Little ears.
Little squiggly hairlines.
And again for some cartoon accessories and effects.
I think the sweat would go again.
Maybe his head would be shaking from laughing so hard so let's put some of these lines in.
And there you have it.
A good way to practice expressions would be to sit in front of a mirror.
Just look at your face.
Make these expressions and then transfer your expressions onto the paper into cartoon style
lines.
Okay let's do a different expression now.
How about suspicion?
Now I do want to say to you here that when you come up with expressions that you know
you have to draw think it through.
What might happen to someone's face when they're suspicious?
Like let's start with our shape.
Let's give them a nose.
Let's give them a face this way.
When someone's suspicious they might be peeking out the side of their eyes like eyebrows.
One would be down, sort of pondering and the other one up.
The mouth like this, not so sure so he's sort of not happy about it.
One ear over here.
One ear over here.
Let's give him a crew cut.
Some dots for some stubbly hair.
Now for some cartoon effects.
If he was suspicious of somebody he might have real quickly turned his head.
And by doing that we sort of get that impression.
And if he's looking at something over here we can indicate that by little dotted lines
like he turned and looked.
And that would be suspicion.
Let's do another one.
Let's have someone crying hysterically.
Okay, circle.
Here's a nose.
The mouth is in a frowning thing and as before the lip is out and the teeth are showing.
Tongue.
It's going to be blackened in because it's the inside of the mouth.
Now I want to say here that you're going to find that when you're drawing expressions
a lot of times you're going to find them overlapping.
Like the mouth might be the same in crying and anger.
But it might be one little subtlety like the eyes or the cartoon effects and accessories
that we spoke about that will change the whole thing.
So let's put some ears up here.
One there and his eyes will be closed and his eyebrows instead of down making him angry
he's crying so his eyebrows will be up sort of in a pitiful type way.
Now for the cartoon accessories let's blacken in the chin first.
The side of his face.
Give him some hair.
Okay some sweat and some tears.
How about a word like this to make it all work.
So you can do things in cartoons that you can't do in other forms of art like adding
that you could never do in an oil painting.
Okay let's do a different one.
How about stunned?
How about a stunned person look?
Let's start with a shape.
Let's put a nose in.
Let's put a nose like that with one nostril in.
Now for the eyes let's do something new.
How about just a swirl like no pupils or anything.
Eyebrows one up here, up there.
Nothing more than a little line like that.
Ears.
Let's have his hair stand straight up in the air like that.
Okay now for some effects.
You can get a lot of mileage out of these sweat drawings.
Okay now some lines like this indicate that maybe he heard a loud noise or was hit over
the head with a brick or something like that.
But then we have stunned.
Let's do a fright.
That's a great one to do.
Okay let's start with our shape like that.
Let's give him a nose over there.
This will be a side view.
Again the mouth will be in the opposite of a smile.
A lot of teeth showing on this one.
Even the bottom teeth will be out on this one.
And the tongue right in there.
Let's blacken that in.
That's inside.
Teeth bottom teeth, top teeth.
Okay now let's put the ear in.
Now what's going to make this whole expression work are the eyes.
You don't want to have them closed.
You don't want to have them half closed.
You want to have them wide open.
So let's draw circles.
One circle and then the other circle which will be a little bit behind that eye.
You only see part of that circle.
So like that.
Now for the pupils to make this fright really work, to make it as funny as possible, you
make a small, small dot.
Eyes way up.
Hair, definitely standing straight up.
Again some sweat.
And some vibrations to the eyeballs.
Boom.
Some more sweat.
All that guy, he's scared.
Okay try a few.
Look in the mirror.
Come up with some expressions.
And make sure you observe people wherever you go because this too can sharpen your skills.
Okay now for some more cartoon effects and accessories.
We have a lady here looking into a mirror.
Now to make that look more like a mirror, a glass mirror, all we do is make a couple
diagonal lines together.
Now watch.
Right over the drawing.
Don't worry about it.
Two together.
Maybe one more over there.
That sort of adds a reflection.
So she's looking into a mirror.
That's one way to make glass.
You can do the same thing with a puddle.
If you had a shape drawn and you added a couple lines it would sort of give the reflection
effect.
Okay let's move down to this one.
We've got here a fella here who could just have been hit by a brick.
How would we indicate that?
To show motion, we're going to have the brick coming in from here.
Like that.
Again, be loose.
Now at a point of impact, let's put a sound effect.
How about.
Bunk.
My favorite.
And let's put a little splash like that so it looks like he just got hit in the head.
Now the brick's going to continue on.
This way.
Let's draw the brick now.
Which is nothing more than a rectangle.
Now that's the brick.
Let's take a little red pencil and make that look more like a brick.
And there you have it.
If you wanted to go over that with a little color you could just sort of take the same
lines and add to it and maybe even take a marker and do this.
So it really looked like it hit him in the head.
Okay.
Let's move on.
Okay we have here a fella who is shocked.
Amazed.
Okay what do we add to him?
Just like before we add some sweat.
And some vibrations to the eyeballs.
But now what really is going to make this, now notice up here.
If he was really that shocked his hat might have flown off his head.
So let's draw his hat.
Baseball hat.
And here's his brim.
Now again some motion lines indicating some speed or action.
A couple of these lines to make the hat sort of look like where it's been.
And that makes it just fly right off his head.
So if we add a little color to this, let's give him a blue hat.
And that works great.
Okay let's move down to the next sketch here.
We have a fella who just swung a golf club.
Now that sketch by itself doesn't really have too much motion to it but if we again add
that point of impact, let's add the sound effect too.
How about my second favorite, THWACK.
Okay spelled T-H-W-A-C-K is the proper spelling of THWACK.
Okay and some splash lines like that.
Now the golf club would have started here and continued all the way around because if
you're a golfer you know you have to have a follow through.
So let's do this and all the way around.
A couple lines like that.
Some more sweat.
I like to juice up my pictures as you may say.
Okay put a little red.
And again you can add some lines like that to make it look that much more powerful.
Let's do another one.
Okay now we have a fella here who is very cold.
How would we show he's cold?
Now as before we wanted to show some motion.
We just put some vibration lines but if he's cold he might be shaking so you make the lines
appear to shake on each side.
And out of his mouth might come a little bit of steam or smoke in this case.
Like this.
Smoke is drawn just like we did before on the running pose.
And this fella's cold.
Okay down here we have a pot boiling.
Now to show a pot boiling we could do a couple things to it.
We could add these wavy lines like it's steam coming out.
Maybe double that.
Just go over the same one and because your pen won't actually go over the same lines
even if you tried you sort of get that nice flow to it.
Double line flow.
Now what else might happen?
Okay if it's boiling there might be a little bit of water coming out.
Like that.
What else might happen to it?
Bubbles.
So you put up just a couple little bubbles like that.
Now just like there are so many different styles and techniques to drawing the cartoon
head the same thing holds true for this next segment, cartoon bodies.
First we're going to start with a standing pose and then we'll move on to some action
poses.
Okay?
First is standing.
Now we're going to start in much the same way as we did cartoon heads.
We're going to start with shapes.
A shape for the head.
And we're going to make this fella waving.
Now we're going to put another shape in for what will be the torso.
There we go.
Now we're just going to loosely draw some lines that are going to indicate arms, legs,
some shapes for hands, feet.
Now we're going to go back over this using these guidelines and fill in some details.
Now we already know how to draw the cartoon head so let's put in a nose, mouth, some teeth,
ears, face.
Okay now here we go with the body.
Now I want to say here don't panic.
We're going to take it body part by body part and we're going to build on it.
The neck.
Now we're going to draw the arm.
Now when I say the arm, let's think about that.
What does that take in?
It starts with a shoulder down to the elbow.
Same thing on the other side.
Now the hand.
Now let's make him having just a fist.
Okay now let's do the same thing over here.
Shoulder, elbow, and up.
Now let's make him waving.
Okay now let's go back and put in a little bit of detail.
Let's give him a shirt sleeve and a collar.
Now as far as the body goes, the rest of the torso here, let's put in a line that's going
to indicate his waist which would be his belt down here.
Now let's make this a little more definite.
Now we're just going to thicken up these two lines and make it pants.
There you have it.
Shoes.
That's it.
A little shadowing.
Some cartoon accessories.
We have a fellow waving.
That's all there is to it.
Now the shapes are going to dictate to you what proportions the figure is going to turn
out to be.
If we were to use a much rounder shape, he would have been a fatter fellow with shorter
lines here.
He would have made him have shorter legs and it would have been more of a squat type figure.
Okay let's do it again.
This time let's do a woman.
Start with the shape.
Now for another shape for the body.
This time let's make it a little thinner like that.
I want to say here also that these guidelines that I'm using might appear to be a little
bit darker when we go over it again but that's just because I'm trying to illustrate to you
what we're doing.
Okay now some lines for the feet, shape.
Let's put our hands on our hips like this.
Okay now let's go back over it.
Now I'm going to use the darker pencil here.
Hopefully it will be that much darker.
Okay now let's do her face.
Let's make her mad.
Eyes, eyebrows down remember.
Give her a little nose.
Let's make her gritting her teeth off to the side like that.
Let's give her some bushy hair.
Okay now let's give her a chin.
Let's give her some earrings.
Okay we've got her face in there.
Now let's draw the rest of it.
Go back over the neck.
Again let's start with the shoulders.
Down to the elbow.
Down.
Let's give it some thickness.
Let's have her hands on her hips like that.
Same thing over here.
Again those guidelines are just that.
They're guidelines.
They're not so rigid where you can't vary a little bit.
They're just to give you an indication of where you're supposed to be.
Let's give her some sleeves.
Now this is clothing so let's make it a little bit loose.
It comes to about there.
Now her waist.
Her hands are on her hips so her waist is about here.
Give her a belt line.
Bust.
Now we're going to make her skirt with her hips.
Now remember if this is her waist we're going to flare out showing the hips right to her
knees.
Same thing here.
Now if this is to her knees all we have to draw here is her calves like this.
These little lines here show the kneecaps.
Now let's make her feet.
Run that way.
Run that way.
A little shadow on the bottom.
Fill this in like she's wearing slippers.
Okay now let's fix her hair.
Now she's mad.
Add some cartoon accessories.
Some steam coming out of her.
Okay the first action pose we'll draw will be a guy running.
Okay.
Now if a guy's running what will be happening to him?
He'd be leaning forward.
His arms might be stretched out like this and he might be happy.
He might be thinking he's winning the race or something.
So let's start the same way we usually do with a shape.
Here's his head.
Now we said he was leaning forward.
Let's sort of indicate that with a quick action line like this.
Okay same thing with his body.
Let's put a shape in.
Now his arms would be forward.
His head stretched forward.
Hands right there.
For his legs one would be all the way out there.
The other one would be all the way behind him.
He's really leaning forward into this race.
Okay now let's go back over it and put some details in.
Okay first his facial expression.
As I said he'd be happy he's maybe winning the race so let's make him smile.
Eyes wide open.
He can smell success.
Eyebrows up.
Ear now his hair.
He's running his hair would be flying backwards right?
Okay here's his chin.
Back a little bit more hair.
Okay now again start with his shoulder.
Elbow again.
Okay sleeve same thing over here.
Now for his hand, this hand fingers stretched out reaching.
You can see a little bit of his other hand so again some fingers.
Okay now his body he's leaning forward so we have his back arched.
Front.
Now let's put in a line that indicates his waistline right there.
Okay let's put him wearing shorts.
So let's make some elastic huh?
That's elastic.
Okay now shorts.
And now for his thigh, knee and down.
Thicken it up go over it.
Okay now let's put his socks in.
Now his foot will be sort of pointing up ready to go down and make contact with the ground
so let's put his running shoe in there.
Let's put a little zigzag line there for his running shoe.
Now here's his other leg back here.
Here's his shorts.
Let's make this line a little heavier.
And here's his other leg.
All the way back.
His calf, socks and his other shoe.
Laces.
Okay he's running.
Now let's do things to this to make it really run off the page.
Let's put the ground line in.
That would be down here.
Really make him look who's going faster because he's off the ground.
Let's put a shadow in.
Down here.
Now let's put some speed lines in like this.
Some lines like that.
Some smoke.
Dust.
Some more smoke here.
Again some perspiration.
Some movement in his eyes.
And he's running.
Now let's add one more element to this, a couple more elements just to make it like
expressing a funny idea.
Okay he's running a race.
So let's put in the words.
Finish line.
Okay but watch this.
He's running the wrong way and over here we can put another fellow over here.
His eyes are half masked.
Eyebrows up.
There's a nose.
Looking at us.
Let's give him a hat.
Like he's the coach.
Okay you get the idea.
Okay let's do another one.
Let's do a guy swinging a baseball bat.
Okay again start with a shape.
Here's his head.
Another shape for his body.
Let's have him looking straight at us and have his legs sort of in a squatting motion.
And now his arms would be, if he's facing this way, his arms would be this way because
he just swung the bat around.
So let's have his arms like that.
The other one like that.
A couple of shapes for the hands.
Okay now let's go back over this.
Put some details in.
Put some shapes for his feet.
Okay he's looking this way.
Let's put his nose in.
Smiling.
This time let's have his eyes closed because he just swung the bat.
He's happy about that.
Let's put a hat on his head.
Little beanie.
Here's the brim.
Let's put his chin in.
Okay now we know he's facing this way and the swing was this way so let's put his shoulders
in as before.
Thicken it up.
Let's put his sleeve in.
One hand.
Other hand.
Other shoulder.
Now let's draw the bat in.
Okay now let's do his body again.
Let's put a line in for his waist.
Let's make his torso.
And there we have it.
Now we're just going to put his legs in like this.
Double that.
Now if he's wearing a baseball outfit let's have his pants sort of blast the bottom.
High socks.
Shoes.
Shadows.
Spikes.
There it is.
Let's put some lines in there to indicate a swing.
And a point of impact.
Let's make a sound effect.
Pow.
And the ball would be going off the screen like that.
Boom, boom, boom, boom.
Okay.
Now a good way to practice action drawings would be to just draw from life.
Have your friends post for you or watch TV.
Watch a basketball game or even go to a game live and bring your sketch pad.
Just sketch away.
Now finishing these drawings isn't what's important.
What is important is just get yourself used to seeing that line of action.
What happens to the human form when it's in motion?
Now let's see.
We've covered heads, features and expressions, action drawings, cartoon effects and accessories.
Let's move on now to my favorite area of cartooning.
Animals.
Add new cartoon ground missing.
Cartoonists love to draw animals because they go everywhere and they lend themselves to humor so easily.
I mean it's funny to see an animal in a human situation thinking or speaking.
And to draw animals is really simple. It's really just a matter of utilizing the same steps and techniques that we used for the cartoon face.
Let's draw a dog and I'll show you.
We start with a shape.
And another shape back here.
Now let's just go over that.
Let's put in a nose. Now a dog is going to be different than a human.
Big circle. Make this black.
Leave that white space there for a highlight.
Okay, now let's put in eyes. Same as before.
Although you can draw your eyes any way you want.
And a mouth.
And his tongue coming out.
Now that's basically it for the outline.
Now let's just go back and make it more dog-ified.
Let's make him a shaggy dog.
Let's put some hair on top and let's give him floppy ears.
So there you are back there.
That's basically it.
Let's draw another one.
This time let's draw a line.
Have him looking straight at us.
Let's start with a shape.
And another shape for his face.
Now let's go back and put the features in. Same as before.
Put some eyes in.
Eyebrows.
Now his nose will also be different.
Mouth.
His chin.
Let's give him some whiskers.
Now let's put a shape for his head.
His head and now he's got ears like this.
Now let's make him look like a male lion with a mane.
And that's it.
That's how you draw a lion.
Let's do a couple quickies now.
For instance, to draw a fish is nothing more than a diamond shape like that with a triangle in the back.
Let's put an eye in the middle.
Let's make him smiling.
Put a fin.
Some of that.
Let's blacken this.
A couple bubbles.
Some motion lines for his fins.
That's how you draw a fish.
Now let's draw a snake.
Okay. His face would be like long.
Little nostrils like that.
Let's give him a sinister smile.
And some eyes.
Like that.
Now for his body it's nothing more than some loose squiggly lines.
Go back over what you've just done.
Put a ground line in like little shadows.
Put his tongue in.
You can put some spots on him.
Put his rattle on, his rattlesnake.
Have it shake. You can even put a sound effect in there if you wanted to.
Or you can even have this.
Okay. It's obvious we can't draw all of the different kind of animals that there are.
But a good way for you to practice would be to clip out of a magazine or some books.
Some pictures of animals.
And just like we did with features and expressions, just reduce what you see down into cartoon style lines.
Simplify and humorize.
It may be a good idea to even start what cartoonists call an art morgue.
Which is a collection of photographs from pictures of animals to athletic events, houses.
And a good way to start your art morgue would be to get yourself a catalog from a major department store.
Because in that you have pictures of hammers, lawn mowers, beds, everything.
Okay. Let's do another picture here.
And this time we're going to introduce something new.
Okay. This time we're going to draw a dog again. But this time we're going to have him running.
Put some lines in. Remember like before.
His legs, front legs would be out forward. His back legs would be like that.
And his tail. Now let's go over this and put some features in.
Remember the nose, little shine.
Eyes.
Mouth.
And tongue.
Ears flying in the wind because he's running.
Now let's do his body. Let's do his legs.
Belly.
His back legs.
And his tail.
Okay. We have the dog there.
Now let's put in some backgrounds.
Now when you're doing backgrounds, put some shadow there and some speed lines.
You don't want to take away from your main character. So you'll want to keep it as simple as you possibly can.
Let's put some ground in.
Stagger that line a little bit because it's grass. He's outside.
Now let's put some trees, which is a line like that. Put the roots.
A knothole.
Some lines like that.
Leaves.
And in the foreground let's put some bushes.
Which we draw like that.
In the background let's put some more bushes. Now these lines that we drew like that in the background will be smaller.
Some more over here.
This indicates a little bit of grass.
And you can put a mountain in.
Real lightly.
And let's put the sky in. Put some clouds.
That's all I'm going to do. Because you want the main character to stick out.
Okay now let's do another one.
Okay this time we have a secretary typing away. Now let's put her in an office setting.
Okay she's already got the typewriter here. Let's put the desk in.
Not too much detail.
Keep it simple. Let's have some papers flying.
Now let's put in a horizon line in the back.
That's the floor.
Now let's give her some props.
She might have a file cabinet next to her.
Let's do this.
And a vase.
Put one flower in it. Makes it funnier. It's a cartoon.
Sort of drooping.
Okay now how about a door?
I'm also not making my lines as dark as I was before on the main character.
Of course it's in the background. Now there might be a tile floor.
Let's make it like this.
See how the lines come forward? Sort of making perspective.
It sort of brings you into the picture that way.
Now over here, let's give her a picture window.
Now in the window let's put the view of the city.
Which we do like that.
We can make it three dimensionalized by adding a little shadowing.
Put some windows.
You don't want to go too wild on this because it's going to take away.
Put some sky in.
And that's basically it. Now that would be an office setting.
Okay let's do another outdoor scene. This time a football field.
Okay we've got a fellow running for a pass.
Now let's put the ground line in.
Let's put some shadowing because he's running.
Some speed lines again.
This time we're not going to have it so on the same plane like we did with the office and the other outdoor scene.
We're going to put some perspective in it.
Now these are the grandstands.
See how it goes up on an angle like that?
Bringing you into the distance. See this is the far end.
These are the seats.
Some banners. Flags.
And people far away would just be dots.
If you were closer in the foreground it would be more like circles.
But you don't have to draw every person obviously.
But you can just suggest it.
People up here on the cheap seats would also be dots.
And like that. Now let's put some lines in for the football field.
Even put the goal post in.
And some sky.
Now a good way to practice backgrounds is to just plain have your sketch pad with you all the time.
When you go to the shopping mall or even drawing in your own living room.
Just get in the habit of always sketching.
Now when you're drawing say in your living room and you need things like props because you want to add these to some of your pictures.
All you do when you draw props is just to reduce it down to its basic elements.
Like let's draw something you see every day like a computer.
Now this could do for the screen.
Let's put a little thickness in it.
That's all you would need for the screen.
Now for the keyboard it's like a rectangle.
For the keys you can just suggest a few circles or squares whatever you want.
And that would take it.
And a little squiggly line for the wire connecting it.
That could be a computer.
Let's do something else you see every day.
How about a coffee pot?
That could be, let's make it crooked.
And let's put the spout right there.
And the base.
You don't want to start with too much detail.
Here's a handle.
Let's have the lid flying off.
Maybe some steam coming out.
Even some coffee dripping out.
Make that black.
Some lines looking like it's coming off.
How about the cord if it's an electric percolator?
And that could be the way you would draw that.
Now how about a chair, an easy chair?
Make it real soft looking.
Pillow, the other arm.
Buttons.
That would do fine for a chair and for a lamp next to it.
All you have to do is look around your own house. There's plenty of things to practice on.
Let's put some fringe on the lampshade.
Okay, now do you remember before when I said to you that anything's possible in the world of cartooning?
Well let's go back and have some fun.
Let's take these objects that we've already drawn and put some life into them.
Put eyes, nose, mouth right into that chair.
Make them come alive.
Same thing with the lamp. Let's make the lamp a girl.
Nose, lipstick.
See, you can even do that.
Let's have them in love.
Inanimate objects coming to life.
Let's go back and do the coffee pot.
Okay, let's look on the object and see what might be used for the nose. It's already there, like his spout.
Put some eyes around that.
Let's have him wincing. Let's put his eyes squinting like that.
How about have his mouth like that, like it's so hot he can't stand it.
See, we've added life.
Let's do the computer.
Same thing, we'll just do the same features. Let's have him looking smart.
And smug.
Let's have him thinking of something smart.
E equals MC squared.
Thinking.
Now a cartoon like this could easily be used for an advertisement for a computer store.
Well, that's about it for the basics of drawing cartoons.
I hope you've enjoyed it. We've covered a lot of ground. The rest, well, that's up to you.
But the more you practice, the more you'll develop your own style and technique for drawing cartoons.
And when you practice, make sure you practice everything and not just what comes easiest to you.
For example, if you have trouble drawing, say, cartoon hands or action drawings, focus in and work on that.
Remember this, if you even have a little talent and you practice hard, you'll do much better than a lazy person with tons of talent.
I'm Bruce Blitz saying, keep on cartooning.
Yeah.
Yeah.