How To Draw Cartoon Characters In Procreate

Tags: Procreate Digital Illustration App

Learn how to bring your cartoon characters to life using Procreate

Last updated 2022-01-10 | 4.8

- The basics of drawing in Procreate on the iPad
- The basics of cartooning from sketching to inking to coloring
- How to use shapes to make your characters look different from each other and develop your own style

What you'll learn

The basics of drawing in Procreate on the iPad

The basics of cartooning from sketching to inking to coloring

How to use shapes to make your characters look different from each other and develop your own style

How to use faces and body launguage to convey emotion and personality

* Requirements

* An iPad with with the app Procreate
* No experience needed just the desire to learn new skills and have fun

Description

If you can draw a stick figure you can learn to draw cartoon characters. Most cartoons are made up of simple shapes and understanding how to put them all together to make something fun and interesting is easier than you think.

This course gets you drawing. I don't just want to explain the skills I want to to practice and learn the skills. We start with basic shapes and build upon that foundation. Creating different shape combinations to build our characters and then we talk about how to create clean line work so our characters look professional. Then we talk about how artist choose colors and how to enhance those colors to really make your character pop.

Why Procreate? The best drawing app for the iPad is Procreate. procreate has been listed in the iPad’s top selling apps month after month and for good reason. It rivals many desktops apps for power and features. In this class we tackle Procreate to start drawing on the iPad.

Who is this for:

People who want to improve their art but aren't sure where to start
Illustrators looking to learn some tips and trick using Procreate
People who love drawing and sketching and want to start doing it digitally

Who this course is for:

Beginner Procreate Users
Aspiring artists and Illustrators

Course content

5 sections • 34 lectures

Course Introduction 2 lectures

Introduction Preview 02:09

In this lecture I introduce the course and talk about what students can expect over the next several lessons.

Interface Tour Preview 08:19

Procreate's interface is pretty simple and streamlined but there are a lot of handy shortcuts that will help you out throughout this course.

Drawing Basics 6 lectures

Basic Heads Preview 04:49

We start super basics by talking about what makes a basic head and how we can start to add variety using only a very limited amount of elements.

Assignment: Basic Heads Preview 02:46

Your assignment is to draw some heads. The goal is to get as many head variations with as few shapes as possible.

Head Shapes Preview 06:36

Now that we have experimented with with faces we're going to do the same with the shapes of the heads themselves.

Assignment: Head Shapes Preview 01:33

Now we're going to draw different head shapes around the faces we created in the last assignment.

Face Details Preview 09:49

Now we start adding details to our faces. More variation to what we have created up to this point.

Assignment: Face Details Preview 01:12

Lets apply what we learned about face details in this assignment.

Creating Our Character 13 lectures

Putting it all together Preview 07:22

We've done a lot of basic things up to this point now it's time to start pulling it all together and creating our first character.

Assignment: Create a new character Preview 01:22

Now it's your turn. Take what we learned in the last lesson and unleash your creativity on a new character.

Redrawing your Character Preview 04:47

One of the keys to creating a character is becoming familiar with him or her. Redrawing your character teaches you a lot about its personality and how to streamline the drawing process.

Assignment: Redrawing Your Character Preview 00:42

Now it's your turn, try redrawing your character and become more familiar with how you have created them.

How to Draw Facial Expressions Preview 07:13

In this section we take a step back and learn about facial expressions. It doesn't take many shapes or lines to make a really emotive face.

Assignment: Try Different Facial Expressions Preview 02:44

In this assignment your job is to practice different facial expressions on your character.

Drawing Heads from Different Angles Preview 09:11

We could stop here but you are probably going to need to draw your character from different angles so in this lesson we talk about how to go about that.

Assignment: Draw Your Character from Different Angles Preview 01:11

Now it's your turn to practice drawing your character from different angles.

Drawing Poses Preview 05:09

You're going to want to do more with your character than just looks straight on at them so here we talk about drawing poses.

Assignment: Practice Poses Preview 06:08

There is a lot to practice here. It's your turn to practice drawing and seeing poses.

Drawing Your Character in Poses Preview 12:48

Now we take what we learned from poses and we practice drawing our character in them.

Adding Details to Your Character Preview 12:48

Now it's time to adding the gritty details to your character and differentiate them from other characters.

Assignment: Adding Details to Your Character Preview 00:54

It's your turn to add the details and accessories to your character.

Finishing Your Artwork 10 lectures

Adding Brushes to Procreate Preview 04:24

A quick pitstop before we start polishing up our characters I want to walk you through the process of installing brushes.

Inking Tips Preview 11:53

Inking is an opportunity to clean up your character and make them look more professional as well.

Assignment: Practice Inking Preview 02:27

It's your turn. Practive inking your character. This is a step that takes practice so don't feel bad if your first stab at it isn't great, it takes time. Feel free to try inking more than once.

Choosing Colors Preview 12:30

How do artist choose the right colors? it's and age old question. In this lesson I walk you through my process of finding the right colors.

Assignment: Color Studies Preview 00:51

In this section I want you to do some color studies and practice using colors and contrast.

Block Coloring Preview 04:51

Now we take the quick color study we like best and we spread it to a larger character using more care and detail.

Assignment: Color Your Character Preview 00:26

Now iot's your turn to take your favorite color profile from your last lesson and apply it to your character.

Color Details Preview 10:20

The block colors might looks good but they are far from the details we want on our characters so it's time to add more detail.

Assignment: Add Detail Colors Preview 01:05

In this section I want you to break away from just using 4 colors and add some variety and spot colors.

Setting Your Character on a Background Preview 09:42

A lot of time adding a background is a fun way to enhance your character but can also detract from them. Here are some tips and tricks to work around those things.