Cartooning 101 — Week 1

Thanks for signing up for the first exercises of my Cartooning 101 course…
{And welcome to the beginning of a fun and light-hearted process!}

First off, download the Week 1 class notes by clicking here. Have a quick read through them, and then you’ll be ready to use the videos below.

What’s first?

Jump right in and watch the Snoopy videos below. The first one is a hit with all my students because it shows them a simple process to start getting to grips with ‘decoding’ characters so that you can draw them.

The second video explains the power of having a self-correcting learning process.

And it goes without saying that you should watch with pencil and paper at hand to have a go yourself!

Video — Decoding Snoopy
We can’t create anything original until we can copy what is in our mind’s eye onto paper. Watch this Snoopy video for a neat hack that will let you decode proportions and copy accurately.

(Tracing and copying were the secret weapons of Masters such as Vincent Van Gogh. They get you drawing anything faster and more accurately by ramping up eye-hand coordination.)

Video — The Power of Self-Correcting
The whole point of tracing Snoopy in circle-y circles is to create a memorable drawing ‘scaffolding’. We can then use it to recreate him accurately, and (even more importantly) troubleshoot when we go wrong.

Ultimately, being able to copy accurately will mean we can draw anything, including our own original cartoon creations.

What now?

Click here for two more videos about the things that separate beginner cartoonists from the pros… and what to do next.