01 Oct 7 best drawing exercises for creating cartoon characters

You probably will agree with me when I say it’s REALLY hard creating cartoon characters that seems alive. But what if I tell you that…

If you want to learn how to create professional cartoon characters this post could be a great starting point, I will share my best 7 quick drawing exercises for beginners to improve your drawing skills with some practice you will be able to draw characters like a pro.

Feel free to download those characters sketches to practice.

ReDRAWING a character like a pro

Drawing Exercise: pick a professional mascot design you like and rebuild the character’s body structure like a master. In the following video I give you a few tips:

1. Start with simple volumes. Newbies start drawing based on lines, it may work when you copy a character but you will fail miserably whenever you want to change the character’s pose because you didn’t understand the structure. This is the difference between copying a character and moving a character.
2. Places eyes correctly. The easiest trick to place then in the right place is imagining the character is wearing a mask. Before drawing the eyes, draw the mask with the face expression you like.
3. Painting shadows. If you don’t fully understand a volume, try adding shadowing, it will help you a lot.
4. Draw the middle line. Splitting the character in 2 halves helps you to place elements in the right place and with the correct perspective. In this case my character is not completely frontal, so I displaced the middle line to the right.
5. Draw hidden parts and then overlay elements. Observe how I drew the hand, then the fingers and finally the keys.
6. Add details at the end, only when your character’s structure is solid. Starting just the opposite is a very common newbie mistake.
7. Create horizontal lines adapted to the volume, it helps you to understand how to place elements.
8. SECRET TIP: whenever you are happy with the result, flip your drawing horizontally (or put it in front of a mirror) and all small mistakes will pop up. When you observe a draw for long time, your lazy brain get used to it, by mirroring, you are forcing it to watch it like a new visual stimulus.

IMproving action lines in cartoon character

Drawing Exercise: choose an image of a cartoon character you like. You can use the mascots I created for KSA Pro League. Your task is finding the action line.

Some examples of good actions lines in action poses.

How to improve your character’s posing

Drawing Exercise: the task here is creating a character that communicates different moods, attitudes or actions without any lines, just a black shadow. If you do a good work your mascot design pose will be understandable.

Here you can see some of my best silhouettes for a basketball player

Good tips to learn how to draw dynamic poses!

Reducing characters to basic shapes

Drawing Exercise:  your goal is reducing the complexity of any cartoon character to its basic shapes.

Image and character design property of Disney.

Good drawing tips!

Sketching A CHARACTER from Visual REFERENCE

Drawing Exercise: we are going to look at any mascot character or object as much time as you need, then you have only 45 seconds to reproduce it (you can look to the cartoon while sketching).

I want to learn to draw like this!

From basic shapes to detailed CHARACTERS

Drawing Exercise: the goal is building a mascot character using different basic shapes. Notice how simple and effective are he following characters:

Image courtesy of Cedric Studio

Good drawing tips for beginners

Draw A CARTOON from Memory

Drawing Exercise: choose a character design that you like for 2 minute. Stop and relax for 1  minute and then draw the cartoon from memory. If you find it too easy, try with more complex characters. Repeat the exercise until you get good results.

Original draw courtesy of Loisa

THE CHARACTER DESIGNER F.A.Q

Which tools do you need to create digital characters?

Procreate, iPad, and Apple Pencil are wonderful tools, but I consider them a secondary portable setup. For professional production, I still prefer my desktop station (Macbook Pro + Wacom Cintiq + Photoshop); feel free to visit my post about how to pick the best drawing tablet.

Want to learn how to create digital characters?

I have 2 Premium Masterclasses:

Digital drawing in Photoshop: once you master traditional drawing, transitioning to digital character creation is not that hard. You can buy my detailed premium videotutorial about digital drawing with Photoshop aimed at newbies who want to become professional illustrators.

Applying color in Photoshop: finally, when you master traditional drawing and you know the basics of digital drawing, you can start adding color. This is probably the most detailed Photoshop videotutorial on the web to learn how to create professional digital coloring in Photoshop.

More Educational Resources

• Pinterest boards for: anatomy, drawing exercises, face expressions, dynamic poses, static poses
• My Youtube short tutorials
• Books: The illusion of life