Bring Out The Walt Disney Inside You Learn The Drawing Of A Cartoon

Every one of us has our favourite cartoon character. Some prefer Mickey some Donald and some Tom and Jerry. People who do not like cartoons are a minority group. Therefore, if you have a talent for drawing, then you can try your hand in cartoon drawing.
Cartoon is not about the drawing so much as it is about telling a story. Just a drawing of a cartoon will become meaningless if it does not give out any message. Nevertheless, you have to learn to draw a cartoon first and then tell a story through it.

Where Should I Start?

To be a good cartoonist you have to have a keen observation. In addition, you need to think original for you cannot be a good cartoonist by merely copying somebody elses ideas. Other peoples cartoon should be there as guidance, you will need your own talent to make it as a cartoonist. As for learning to draw cartoons, you can join a cartooning school, take home a study course material or follow a do-it-yourself book by a famous cartoonist. Whatever course you take, there will be certain things common in them. In all of them, first you have to learn the method of drawing 3D shapes and how to squeeze and stretch them. Then you have to learn drawing hands and faces. Drawing complex things like motion and emotion will come later.

What Should I Avoid?

You should avoid many things if you want to be a successful cartoonist. First, do not use the computer at the beginning of your learning process. It may sound preposterous in today world of technology, but if you think carefully you will understand why this is being advocated. The softwares used to learn drawing is so easy to operate that a person who cannot even draw a straight line to save himself, can draw marvellously well with the software. This kind of machine dependency will stiffen your urge to learn the art of cartoon drawing and in future, it will cause a problem.

Secondly, do not analyze the models in terms of 2D shapes like circles and rectangles. Instead of that, think of them as 3D objects like spheres and boxes. All the objects we see around our self are made up of 3D but when we are putting them on paper, they are 2D. The opposite is also true i.e. when we have drawn something 2D in the paper we should look out for its 3D
counterpart in real world.

Thirdly, do not always follow your cartoon-drawing book blindly. All these books begin their tutorial teaching basic 3D shapes and progress towards complex and beautiful figures. However, if you do just the opposite i.e. see the complete figure first and try to guess its 3D origin, it will help you to master the art of turning basic figures into complex figure. Soon any everyday life object can bring out a cartoon character from your drawing pad!

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