The Ultimate Guide To Drawing Cartoon Characters

Use this simple technique and learn how to draw great cartoon characters in no time. Make your dream come true.

Last updated 2022-01-10 | 4.6

- In this course you will learn a simple technique that will help you to draw cartoony characters. Whether you are a beginner or you’ve been doing this for a while you can quickly learn how to draw freely and how to design different characters. You will learn how to make a character cute or evil and how to give them emotions. But not only that. You will also learn how a specific body posture correlates to a certain emotion and you can enhance your character’s facial expression by applying the right body posture to them. Using a simple principle of drawing spheres you can draw any character you want
- you can change styles and adjust your design to your liking or to your potential client’s preferences. You can choose a simple style if you are on a tight budget or you can draw advanced Disney-like characters for your portfolio or for your children’s book.
- How to find your own style
- How to conquer your fear of drawing

What you'll learn

In this course you will learn a simple technique that will help you to draw cartoony characters. Whether you are a beginner or you’ve been doing this for a while you can quickly learn how to draw freely and how to design different characters. You will learn how to make a character cute or evil and how to give them emotions. But not only that. You will also learn how a specific body posture correlates to a certain emotion and you can enhance your character’s facial expression by applying the right body posture to them. Using a simple principle of drawing spheres you can draw any character you want

you can change styles and adjust your design to your liking or to your potential client’s preferences. You can choose a simple style if you are on a tight budget or you can draw advanced Disney-like characters for your portfolio or for your children’s book.

How to find your own style

How to conquer your fear of drawing

What makes a character cute

How to draw different designs

How to pose your character

How to keep the proportions the same in different poses

* Requirements

* No previous experience required

Description

New: Bonus video on how to draw proportions when you pose your character.

If you have ever dreamt of becoming a character designer or an illustrator of children´s books or just to be able to draw cartoon characters for your kids, even teaching them how to do it, this is the right course for you.

It can be overwhelming when you don´t know how to start and where to start. But I will show you one very simple technique which will open the doors to your creativity and will take away your fear of failure once and for all. Because this is the only thing that is stopping you from that unfulfilled dream of yours.

So, what will you learn here:

How to loosen your hand and free your mind through the right technique so that you can draw anything you want.
Understand the basics of what makes a character look cartoony, cute, or evil.
Understand and experiment with many different designs for making a cartoony character. Find your own style.
Give motion and emotion to your character.
Learn how to apply facial expressions to exactly your particular character and design.
Attach the right facial expression to a body posture to make the emotion stronger.
How to keep the proportions of the character the same in different drawings.
How to draw cartoony hands.

Who this course is for:

Beginners Illustrators, Intermediate Illustrators, Animators, Parents who want to teach their kids to draw, or who want to learn to make a picture book to their kids

Course content

7 sections • 21 lectures

Loosen your hand 4 lectures

Introduction Preview 04:09

See what you can get from this course.

Lesson 1: Loosen your hand to start drawing Preview 07:07

In this section you will learn how to loosen your hand and how to free your mind from all the blocks that stopping you from start drawing.

Lesson 2: How to draw perspective using a sphere Preview 27:27

Here you will learn why it is very useful to draw loose circles and how to apply the rules of perspective by doing that.

Lesson 3: How to draw cubes in perspective to draw cartoony legs Preview 18:50

In this lesson you will learn how to draw cubes in perspective and how to draw round, cartoony legs, within those cubes, to find the right perspective changes for where your character is standing.

Draw advanced cartoon character - An Elephant 3 lectures

Different approaches to draw a cartoon elephant Preview 43:18

There is not only one way of drawing cartoon drawings. Use this exercise to try different approaches to design a cartoon character.

Start with drawing circles to find the shape and form of your character.

Draw advanced cartoon character in different poses - Part 1, Happy Elephant Preview 29:32

In this lecture you will choose one of your created designs, this time the more advanced one and you will learn how to pose it and draw it so it comes to life. By give the character personality and applying emotions to him/her they take on a life of their own.

Use this simple technique by drawing rough circles to find the perspective, where each body part is located and how it changes in proportion to other parts of the body according to the perspective in the scene.

Draw poses of a cartoon elephant - Part 2 Sad Emotions Preview 25:42

We will continue to draw the poses with the elephant adding some sad or unhappy poses to the library.

Draw a cat 5 lectures

Draw different cat designs - a cartoon cat with defined features Preview 18:03

Start drawing the cartoon cat with simple spheres using the features you know of what describes a cat.

Draw a stylized cat Preview 13:46

Draw two cats that are very stylized, exaggerate it´s features to create different personalities and looks.

Draw cartoon cat with more human-like features Preview 19:08

Here you will learn how to draw a cartoon cat using more human-like features. We will draw a cute female cat and you will learn how to make your characters look cute, how to use body language and features to enhance that emotion or personality.

Draw cartoon cat with evil look Preview 18:59

Learn how to draw a character with a more evil or cunning personality.

What makes a character appear evil?

The power of stereotypes.

Use simple tricks to enhance the idea of being evil or cunning.

How to bring to life even a very simplistic character Preview 51:18

Choose the most simple cat from your selection of different cat designs.

Now you will draw this cat in different poses and giving it different emotions using the tools you´ve learned in the previous lectures on how to find the perspective in a sphere.

You will see that you can breath life even into very simple designs.

Emotions and Facial expressions 5 lectures

Draw an advanced cartoon bunny Preview 13:56

Draw a human-like cartoon bunny using the techniques from the previous lectures.

Prepare some general facial expressions Preview 13:27

Look yourself in the mirror or find references of some extreme facial expressions - happy, sad, angry, cool

Draw them on a separate sheet of paper.

Generalize.

Happy Bunny Preview 22:03

Choose the "happy" facial expressions and try to pose yourself in front of a mirror mimicking those. See how your body language changes.

Apply facial expression to a proper body language to convey the idea of the character experiencing it.

We convey emotions through body language first and then with our facial expressions.

Sad, angry Bunny Preview 21:25

Continue with the other expressions on your sheet.

Add body language to your character.

Notice how you feel sad, or angry. Play it out in front of a mirror.

Cheeky Bunny Preview 12:08

One very common cartoony expression is when one eyebrow is raised up and the other one is lowered down. This can express a lot of emotions and is very exaggerated. Think of Jim Carry in the Mask, or the Rock.

Add body language to your character specific emotion, either it is cool, sneaky, cheeky or other.

Do your own examples of this expression.

How to do a Turnaround and keep the character´s proportions 2 lectures

Draw a Turnaround Preview 21:50

This is a part of every production, either you do it for yourself or you work in a big studio - you will need to keep the proportions of the character the same through out your animated film or your book illustrations.

This is a guideline.

Do more poses in between when you get comfortable with this exercise.

Bonus: How to Draw proportions when posing the character Preview 18:10

This is a bonus video answering a student´s question about how to measure the proportions of the characters body parts, when the character is not in a default position.