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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Use rough spheres to find the basic elements of your hands - the palm being one sphere, the fingers two or three more.

Observe the perspective of your hands.

Draw several tests until you get comfortable with this exercise.

Outline the final hand and add details last.

This is a bonus lecture where you can practise what you´ve learned and even draw a fox using any digital program.

Learn how to decide what background suits your character, how to build a personal touch for your background elements, and how to start with the composition using just spheres. Start drafting the furniture using the same method as the characters.

Learn how to add elements that describe your character, who lives there, and why it is important.

Here we will continue with the polishing but now with the black pencil. Adding details and shading to make our illustration look better and better.