Making A Drawing More Cartoony

Sometimes when you draw a picture you get a feeling that it’s just not cartoony enough. In this article I’m going to share a few ideas to help cartoonify a pic.

Trying bigger head and eyes

Altering the body proportions can instantly make something look more cartoony. You will have seen this many times before in various different characters. Even just altering the eyes alone has an instant effect.

Speed tracing

For this I tried tracing the original drawing really quickly to see if it loosened the lines up. I have to admit that this didn’t really work, but I thought I’d include it here.

Altering the pose

Here I’m altering the pose to see what effect it has. Adding a big grin to a face (where appropriate) can quickly make things more comical.

Adding a greater sense of speed

As the dog is running, I thought I’d emphasize this by altering the pose again to reflect a sense of speed. In particular, the ears flying about in the wind.

Adding comical touches

I thought I’d add the tongue lolling about. I also added the second eye and had the dog slightly cross-eyed to give the impression of manic speed.

The finished picture

Of course some breeds are naturally more comical than others…

Would you like to learn how to draw cartoon dogs?

To find out details of the Cartooning Canines - How To Draw Cartoon Dogs Course, click the button below, send me a mail and type ‘Woof!’ In the subject line.