Do you ever find yourself stuck for thinking up ideas for cartoons?
What if there was a simple exercise you could do to help you come up with ideas of your own.
Mind maps is one solution to the frustration of being stuck thinking of good idea
If you have a favourite character that you like drawing, you can use it as the basis of a mindmap. We’ll also look at using mindmaps for specific situations you want to think up ideas for.
If you don’t have a regular character that you draw, you can either invent one or choose a generic character, such as ‘the hungry dog.’
Whenever you see the prompt over to you, that’s your cue to pick up pen and paper or ipad or drawing tablet and try these ideas out for yourself. It’s far to effective to try them out as you go along.
What is a mind map?
A mind map is a diagram used to visually organize information. It shows relationships between the difference pieces of information.
Herre’s a mind map I put together to generate some ideas for Gerald the Goat.
Here’s a cartoon that was generated by the above mindmap.
Over to you: do a mind map featuring one of your own characters
Extra: draw a cartoon based on one of the ideas that come up.
Narrowing focus mind map
Now we’re going to narrow in expand on one idea you came up with for Monday’s mind map.
I’m going to choose one idea and do a further mind map based on it. First, here is the mind map that appeared previously.
And here is a new mind map narrowing the focus down.
Here’s a cartoon that came from it.
Over to you: try your own mind map to narrow the focus down.
Next we’ll apply the same mind mapping idea to a specific situation.
It can be very useful to revisit a previous situation and apply some new techniques to get different ideas out of it. I was trying to think up some ideas for the theme ‘owner and pet’ that I’d worked with previously. I decided to return to it and create a mind map.
Below is a quick sketch for a cartooon that came from it.
Now we’re going to apply the same mind mapping idea to your own situation. Sometimes ideas and inspiration can be found right under our noses - we just have to realize to take a look.
This exercise will open you to the possibility that there could be ideas wherever you are.
Here is an example from my life. I work as a teacher, so I have chosen ‘classroom’ as the topic of my mind map.
Here’s a cartoon based on one of the ideas:
I could have also chosen ‘teacher’s room’, ‘staff meeting’, ‘student’, ‘sports ground’, ‘teaching conference’ etc as possible topics.
Over to you:: choose a situation from your own life and make a mind map about it.
Here are a few suggestions: at your office, commuting on the train, at home with kids, relaxing in the garden, in the supermarket etc.
Think specifically of your office, commute etc. rather than a generic one. This will help to focus your attention on your own unique situation.
Extra: draw a cartoon based on one of the ideas that come up.
*note: you could also try this exercise when you are in different locations, such as in a cafe, cueing at the supermarket, on the train etc.
Original situation mind map
Finally, choose a completely different topic to mindmap, absolutely anything okay, but something different from what you’ve tried already.
As rainy season is coming up soon here in Japan, I thought I’d do a mind map based on that. Here’s the mindmap:
Here are a few quick doodles from the mind map.
And a completed cartoon.
I hope this article on mind maps has been useful for you.
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