Cartooning 101- Emotion Is All In The Eyes

 

In this lesson we are going to learn how to give your simple cartoon just a little bit of emotion. I was heard a professional cartoonist say “If you’re going to mess up on anything make sure its not the eyes.” When it comes to drawing everything is important but the eyes by themselves can destroy and entire piece of art. You’ve heard that the eyes are the window to the soul, I bet it was an artist that originally said it first. All expression begins with the eyes and communicates through body language and then finally spoken word.

So lets get to it. These eyes were easily drawn in inkscape (If you don’t know by now I really love Inkscape, its vector based software and best of all its free) using simple circles. The eyebrows are just curved lines but when put in different arrangements they convey different emotions(you‘ll notice that most of it is just the eyebrows doing most of the work). I’ll explain each number.

1. This is just the run of the mill happy expression. Eyebrows slightly raised and open. When added to a face it makes it look happy.

2. Basically the same as the first with one difference, the eyebrows are raised way higher. This helps convey surprise or a more extreme joy.

3. This brings in the eyebrows and eyelids in the opposite way as the two previous. By flipping the eyebrow the other way it helps show a bit of concern when added to the eyes it shows worry.

4. If the eyebrows on the outside show worry when on the inside it totally changes from worry to anger. Everybody is familiar with the anger face because everything around the inside of the eyes bunches together.

5. When the eyebrows are even and more than halfway down the face it presents more of a mellow or sleepy feeling. This one is less about eyebrows and more about eyelids.

6. The classic confused face. It is the only one that is classically asymmetric. By adding one eye of happy and the other of worry they combine to create a bit of worry.

7. Closed eyes with the same angle as the happy eyebrows creates a laughter or another extreme joy emotion. When added to a smile it looks like the face is laughing.

I used the same basic face to show that the eyes are the main source of emotion. I hope you enjoy this one, more to come in the future. If you have any suggestion be sure to leave them in the comments.