Drawing A Dog Strip Cartoon

It is said that Bull Terriers are one of the most stubborn of all dog breeds. Certainly that’s the case with Bertie in the above cartoon.

Today I’m going to talk through how I came up with and created the above cartoon.

Initial Rough Sketch

Rough layout sketch. I quickly sketched out how I imagined the cartoon would appear. I wasn’t sure about what the dog breed would be at this point.

Laying Out The First Panel

I wanted a dog breed known for its stubbornness, so a dog trainer friend recommended the Bull Terrier.

Colouring The Characters

For Suki, I basically used the same pose and then adjusted the legs. For Bertie I used four different poses.

I’ve now started colouring in the characters.

Colouring In The Background

I coloured in the background using the watercolour tool, and added shadow using back at 20% opacity.

Moving It Forwards To Night

To establish the fact that a long period of time has pasted since the previous panel, I washed over the scene a few times with the 20% black watercolour tool to give the impression of night.

The Completed Cartoon

Would You Like To Drawn Cartoon Dogs Of Your Own?

The course will cover:

-Drawing dogs in different poses, so you don’t have to keep on drawing the same old hounds.

-Learning about dog body language, so you can have a greater range of expression with your pooches.

-Thinking up gags for dog cartoons, so you’ll never be stuck for something to draw.

-And lots more!

Making Your Characters Move Faster

Today’s article gives you a few quick tips to make your characters move faster.

Add movement lines. You can experiment with the number of lines, and also if they’re solid lines or broken-up.

If you separate your character from the ground entirely, then it’ll give the impression that it’s moving so fast that it’s flying.

You can have the ears and tongue being blown by the wind. For human or long-haired characters, you can also have the hair trailing in the slipstream.

Try adding a more dynamic pose. In the above case, our everyday pooch is now zipping along like a greyhound.

Space permitting, have a trail of dust extending beyond and beyond the character. You may recall similar effects from cartoons such as the Roadrunner.

Spot the mistake in the above caption!

A diagonal angle can really give an impression of speed, along with making a picture more dynamic in general.

Over to you:

Have a go at doodling your own dog or another character going flat out. Experiment with using a combination of the previous techniques.

Feel free to try out different ideas, whether your own or from other cartoons.

Would you like to draw your own cartoon dogs?

Add your name, best email address, and type “woof!’ in the subject line, and I’ll send you details of the ‘Cartooning Canines - How To Draw Cartoon Dogs’ course.