Learn to draw cartoons: Lesson 5 - The figure in detail

In Lesson Two you studied and practiced drawing the comic figure in its basic form. We are now ready to tackle the comic figure in greater detail. What you learned in Lesson 2 will still apply in this lesson. The gesture-action sketch or stick figure should continue to be used throughout the first part of this Course. The preliminary figure is the “skeleton” which helps you determine the size and basic shape of the cartoon character.

The figure in Detail

It is at this time that your own individual style will start to assert itself. Don’t fight it. Use what we give you as a guide, follow it as closely as possible, but if you find that your own style starts to wander in respect to details of features and tech­nique of inking, let it. When we criticize your work we will keep this in mind and try to help you develop along your own path. Of all arts, cartooning is probably the most individual. A cartoonist must draw as he sees and feels. Remember that you are portraying the doings of human beings. Each of us sees and draws our fellow humans in a little different light.
To show you how styles may differ and yet be built from the same basic beginning, each member of the faculty has drawn a comic figure, starting from a simple foundation and proceeding to the final inked figure. Their styles are miles apart, but each started in a similar way and used a similar method to determine size, action and over-all shape.

Building a figure

These pages contain figures by the Faculty members, and show you how they go about constructing a figure. You should copy them, analyze the process, and learn from them. However, the best thing you can get from them is a method for drawing your own figures.

Action and construction before detail

Details are important in giving character to cartoon figures, so the more observant you are of people the more successful your drawings will be. Make a practice of carrying a small pad and pencil. You’ll find that once you’ve made a sketch, no matter how rough, you’ll remember the details long after the sketch has been thrown away. However, important as details are, they should not overpower the figure itself. Too often a beginner, eager to draw character­, giving details, neglects the more important preliminary job of constructing the figure solidly and in appropriate action. Get the overall action of’figure, hands, and feet solid and right before be­coming involved with detail.

Hands

Look at any number of comic strips and you will have trouble finding a hand that follows true, anatomical construction. But every hand you see gives the impression of a real hand and not a lifeless wad of dough attached to the wrist. No matter how loosely he draws hands, a good cartoonist knows what a real hand looks like-and has simplified that knowledge for his work. You don’t have to go to art school to know what a hand looks like. You have two at the ends of your own arms. Use your own models over and over, either drawing them directly, or by looking in a mirror. They’ll show you the positions hands can assume. Then-with these pages as a guide-learn to simplify them. Follow the same procedure you did in drawing the entire fig­ure: establish the overall shape and action before becoming in­volved with details. Think of the hand as encased in a mitten with all four fingers as a unit and only the thumb projecting from the palm. In telling a story and showing expression, the hands are second only to the face, so you must learn to draw them in every action.

Cartoon hands

In drawing cartoons, as in the old Chinese brush drawing, “it isn’t what they put in – it’s what they leave out.” Good cartoon­ists simplify their hands – but you can’t simplify until you under­stand the actual construction. Don’t ever kid yourself into thinking that a successful cartoon has been “tossed off” by the artist. Write this down in your little book of knowledge: Every line that has the appearance of care­less informality is the result of the greatest care and past study on the part of the cartoonist who has drawn it.

Types of hands

Be sure to give the proper type of hands to your cartoon figures. The hands of a circus fat lady attached to the arms of an old-maid schoolteacher would look grotesque and out of place; an elderly gent’s wrinkled and gnarled claws on a teenager would make your drawing look decidedly queer; and hands with slender ta­pering fingers, although fine for a hairdresser or piano virtuoso, would hardly belong to a stevedore. Always give your cartoon figures hands suitable to their character or occupation.

Hands help tell a story

After the face, the hands are the most expressive part of the hu­man body. Even a hand hanging loosely at the side adds some­thing to a cartoon if it was properly “felt” by the cartoonist. Watch hands and their movements – and when you draw them, try to “feel” what they are doing. Even when they are not to be in motion, give hands a fair amount of thought as you draw them. Don’t just put them in as a matter of course. Hands ex­press character and add greatly to humor.

Feet and shoes

There is something about bare feet that is not too pleasant. Women manicure their toenails to give the big toe an exotic look when it is seen sticking out the end of openwork shoes. But some­how a toe is a toe and is pretty closely associated with corns and bunions. A woman’s foot, when covered by a sheer stocking and lifted to graceful heights by a long, thin French heel, loses all suggestion of the chiropodist’s surgical touch. Miss America may wear a scanty bathing suit to expose all the anatomical points on which the experts judge her beauty. But you will notice that her trotters are neatly encased in high-heeled shoes that hide her unsightly toes from view. A bare high instep, when exposed to the eye, is merely bony protrusion that happens to be located somewhere below the ankle. But when this sharp mound is partly covered by the graceful curve of a stylish shoe it becomes the essence of pedal allure. There are few occasions when the cartoonist is called upon to draw bare feet. But he must not ignore the feet in their natural state. He must, as in the case of hands and other parts of the body, know those feet as he knows his brothers and sisters. In the beginning, he must linger with the chiropodist over each toenail and anklebone and learn what the things look like. He must know what’s inside the shoe, whether that shoe be a high-heeled French model or a battered pair of Father’s slippers.
The cartoonist’s mission, as related to the things we stand on, is to draw shoes rather than feet. Drawing shoes is an art in itself. Linger long in front of shoe-store windows. There you will see an infinite variety of clodhoppers, boots and doghouses that will serve you well in your future work. When you get down to using them in cartoons, you will learn to put big shoes on small feet and little shoes on big feet. You will have fun ripping the uppers from the soles so that toes stick out in sly embarrassment or show­ing entirely bare and unadorned pedal extremities in all their knobby majesty. Shoes are the cartoonist’s delight. They have plenty of char­acter. They can be funny or beautiful. And they can play a big part in expressing the personality of the figure.

Action of the feet

One of the great advantages of being a cartoonist is that you are not limited by set rules governing what the human figure can or cannot do. This applies to feet as well as to other parts of the body. In the drawings on this page you see the limited action of a real human foot. This action is further limited by the shoe, which inhibits the ability of the toes to bend upward or curl un­der-both very expressive actions. Many a good action cartoon is spoiled because the feet are too set or stiff, so, when it is called for, try to give the feet expressive action by a little exaggeration. However, exaggerate only such actions as the foot actually can perform, or your cartoon figures will appear to have their pedal extremities awkwardly out of joint. Don’t overlook the bottoms of shoes. A man running away from you will show the bottom of the foot that is behind. There is a lot of “feeling” to the bottoms or shoes. When a man is knocked down he looks really out if you show him with his feet toward the reader, and\he bottoms of his shoes toed in. Regardless pf how you draw shoes, remember they must fit the rest of the character. Don’t draw the same kind of shoes on all of your characters. Notice that your friends don’t wear the same kind of shoes.