In a cartoon, you have to help your reader to get the gag or the main point.
In fact it is your responsibility as a cartoonist to do so, unless of course you are happy for folks to say “I don’t get that” a lot.
And you only have a very short time in which to help your reader get the point. A few folks will be happy to puzzle over something trying to figure out what it’s all about, but most will move on very quickly. Not only that, but next time around they might not even bother looking in the first place if they think it’s going to take some effort.
It’s good to make them do some of the work, but don’t make their job too hard.
In this article we are going to look at some handy hints and tricks you can use to guide/lead their eye where you want it to go in your picture
We’ll cover the following points:
Using elements in the cartoon to point to the object of attention
Using colour to catch the attention
Some cartoons that don’t work - and how to improve them
It’s useful to be able to guide the reader’s eye towards a main detail of the cartoon, especially if it isn’t immediately obvious at at first glance. This is a trick that has been used by artists for a long time.
Let’s look at how I helped guide the reader’s eye in the picture below.
1. The tree branch points towards Nessie.
2. The mountains in the far background form a ‘V’ shape, guiding the eye to what’s beneath.
3. The red spots on Nessie help catch the eye.
4. The fishing rod, catch net handle (5) and dog (6) all point towards Nessie.
Using elements to points towards the main detail
Let’s look at another cartoon usingthis technique.
In this one I wanted to draw attention to the boy in the background, whose yacht has just been ‘retrieved’ by the dog. Both the brown of the path by the river, and the sail of the yacht point back towards him.
Using spot colour
Using spot colour is anothe really good way to catch your reader’s attention.
For this one I wanted to draw the reader’s attention to the dog pouring water into the boot. The simplest and quickest way to do so was to colour the boots bright red. Spot colour is a quick way to catch the reader’s eye.
This is a picture I drew for a ‘word-of-the-day’ challenge. The word featured was ‘charging’, and the idea of using an electric eel came into my mind. I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to include the eel in the picture, until I found an iPad charger that one of my students had left laying around the classroom. It was then that I made the connection to have the eel recharge the phone.
I wanted to connect the eel and the fisher together. One way I did this was to have the red of the belly of the fish connecting with the red of the fisher’s boots.
Use bright colour against a dark background
The contrast of bright colour against a dark background will really help to grab attention. This one would have been more effective is I had made the rock face even darker and dulled down the the bright blue of the sky and the purple mountains inthe background.
The river in the valley below points towards Gerald (the goat) and his trajectory is towards the flowers that are his target.
The beak of the pelican points towards the oncoming storm clouds. This one might work better if I had toned down some of the colour on the boat and the fisher, so as not to distract the eye.
Improving cartoons
Let’s look at a few examples that I think don’t really work.
White catches the eye, however in this picture the white is on the woman’s blouse and I want my attention to go on the picture on the fridge. Her bright red gloves are also a distraction.
Here’s a revised version. In this one I’ve made the door of the fridge white and replaced her white blouse with a blue one. I also swapped her bright red gloves for softer pink ones.
Make sure that bright colours don’t distract your viewer’s attention away from where you want it to go.
Let’s look at an example.
In this fishing pic two of the pelicans are pointing towards the exceedingly small fish she’s just caught. However, the fish is grey and so easily merges into the background. Not only that, but the bright colours of her fishing gear: the yellow Mac, orange sweater, and bright green boots, also distract the eye.
I’ve now swapped out the grey fish for an orange one, and given her a more drab fishing outfit.
For this one, although all the characters are looking at the same spot, I thought I would add a little more direction.
I changed the position of her gloves so that they’re also angling towards the focal point. I almost added a few bubbles on the surface of the water.
Summary
Let’s go over the points we looked at in this article.
-use elements in the cartoon to point towards the object of attention
-don’t let bright colour distract attention to a non-essential element
I hope that has been of help. Let me know if you have any questions.
Cheers!