How To Draw Comic Book Style Hair- Art Lesson

In this video is a quick tutorial for how to raw comic book style hair. its pretty simple and I touch on aspects like hair placement and how hair is best drawn in chunks rather than individual pieces. I touch a little on shading but most just a quick tutorial on the subject. enjoy

How To Draw Cartoons- Drawing Cartoon Hands Made Simple

 Everybody can learn to draw.  I believe that because I believe there is nothing special to anything that I know.  We all know the old say about “practice, practice, practice” but that advice is useless if you have no knowledge of the some basics. Without anything to practice there is no way you can get better, most people don’t know where to start and that’s why people always say I cant draw anything.  All it takes is a little resolve and some practice and you could learn to draw anything. But today I’m gonna show you my hands.

Some of the hardest things to draw are always the hands.  If you’re anything like me this is going to be a difficult area for you all your life.  Sometimes you even end up with the choice between dealing with hands or drawing nothing but shy characters with their hands always behind their backs. But that gets old.  I thought hands were difficult until I learned the secret to drawing cartoon hands… you ready for the secret… don’t get ahead of me. Here it is, the secret is the O and the J.  Does that seem too simple, I’m over simplifying but the basic building blocks to the cartoon hand are the O and the J.  I will show you now with a basic rock, paper, scissors of hand movements.

 O and J.  Simple enough!

 Paper

Rock

 Scissors

The Art Of The Open Mic

Recently I have been going to the local open mic and if you have never been to one I highly suggest going. The open mic is a magical land where the things you say can actually be heard by a group of disgruntled people looking for an outlet. The particular open mic that I have been going to is for “comedy.” I’m from a town with no comedy except for the stray comedian that comes through here every now and then, so expectations are pretty low and I’m happy about that.

The first time I went there weren’t that many people and their rule is that the longer you have been going the earlier you get to go on stage, which really sucks for the new guy. So, if its your first time you get to sit through everybody’s jokes and the fear will paralyze your ear drums and you wont even be able to hear anything. You keep looking over your jokes because most of the time you wont have the foresight to memorize it anyway. Looking over the jokes you realize that none of it is funny like you thought it was (relax that just the pre-stage jitters) so you start to mark off any and all the jokes you think wont get a laugh. As you run out of material you begin to consider that maybe its just nerves that have made you mark all these lines on your notes.

And after the torture of having to wait the whole time then it becomes your moment. Here’s a tip for the first timer, don’t sit too far in the back because you’ll want to get to the stage while they’re still clapping, for self esteem purposes. Then they call your name and your heart starts racing, you get up and your knees are weak. You walk on stage concentrating on not falling down. Raising your head you see all the hopeful faces waiting for you to make them laugh. You’re in luck, they’re on your side.

Now its time to be funny.

　

Drawing A Simple Cartoon Character- Using Circles

Its that time again, time for a drawing lesson- Drawing A Simple Cartoon Character Using Circles. I really enjoy drawing and If I haven’t said it before I’ll say it right now, ANYONE CAN LEARN TO DRAW!! I know this because there are basically 2 types of thinking brains in this world, the artistic and the analytical, everything falls in between. Drawing can be completely artistic or completely analytical. But if you have never done it in your life then I see how it can be intimidating, especially after seeing the cartoons on tv or the comics in the paper all your life. Let me assure you I am not a great artist by any stretch of the imagination, I just have loved drawing since I was a kid and as an adult have fallen in love with it all over again. The only difference is now I want to share my love with the world and give people the opportunity to fall in love with their own creative side as well. With that being said lets get to it.

Draw your cartoon character in just a few easy steps:

1. Draw a circle….. Boom, its that simple!

2. Now you’re going to draw 3 circles stacked on top of each other in a straight vertical line.

2.1. Draw a line horizontally through the bottom circle to cut it in half, we will only be using the bottom half.

3. Next, the top circle is going to be the head so you’re going to add eyes, eyebrows, a nose, a mouth, and a small curved line for the chin.

3.1. The 2^nd circle is going to be the body so for the purpose of this cartoon we will use a wide bean shape for the body. (as a side note you can vary the bean shape to make a fat short or even a tall and more slender character)

3.2. The bottom half circle is going to be where the legs and feet are. You can make the legs and feet any way you would like…. The way I have demonstrated in the picture is just my favorite quick way to draw them.

4. Then you will be drawing ears and hair on the top circle. To connect the 1^st and 2^nd circle draw a line on the left and right side towards the bottom of the 1^st and top of the 2^nd to be the neck. A curved line at the bottom of the neck lines will be the collar of the shirt.

4.1. On the 2^nd circle you will draw an arm coming out of a sleeve of the shirt. This can also be drawn anyway you would like but the way I have drawn is just a simple quick way with the 4 finger typical cartoon hand. Due to the direction the body is pointing is why you cannot totally see the other arm, if you notice I have only drawn the top with the body in the way.

The final step is just to erase all the unnecessary lines that come from the original 2 ½ circles and there you have your first simple cartoon drawn from 3 circles.

P.S.- There will be future posts going into more detail about each body part and then it will be on to more complex characters. If you have any suggestions or request for drawing lessons leave a comment and I will do my best to get it done. (just so you know I would like Thursdays to be the new drawing lessons day)

　

How To Tell A Joke

Telling a joke is easy, its math. 1+1=2 what that means is you need a premise, set up and then punch line.

All you need to know is what all those things mean and then you will be on your way to telling funny jokes all the time. First a premise is just the basic idea of the joke kind of like a subject. For example yo momma is so fat…… the premise to any of these jokes obviously yo momma being fat and how fat yo momma is.

Next is the set up. The set up is much like misdirection in magic. Like the previous example yo momma is so fat……. This is the entire set up before you get to the end. The set up sets up the audience to expect to go one way right before you go another. If done correctly a set up should be invisible and just sound like a story. In my opinion the set up should always be as short as possible and if it drags too long you can lose the laugh.

Last but not least is the punch line. The punch line is the is the sex of the joke, its what all the dates are for. The punch line is why the audience should laugh. The reason the curve ball is so successful in baseball is because it is structured like a joke. The batter sees the ball coming down straight and at the last second the ball curves off and the batter strikes out. The punch line is the where the joke curves off unexpectedly and the result is the laugh.

If the punch line is the sex that would make the laugh the orgasm. There is no good joke that doesn’t at some point get a laugh. A joke without a laugh is just a thought that should be forgotten. The whole reason for being for a joke is the laugh. Keep writing until you get a laugh.

Guy goes to the proctologist. Proctologist says, “I’m sorry but you have a growth that I’m really worried about” guy says, “that’s my nose, get your fingers out of my mouth”

Cartooning Example

This is not an original drawing.  I am drawing this for my nephew because he asked me for a bumblebee like he was handing out homework.  I'm happy to draw it for him.  I wanted to take the chance to show this drawing because its just a simple line drawing at this point.  I did not come up with this pose this is drawn form a picture I found on the internet. 

For anyone who has been reading my cartooning articles, notice all the lines.  All drawings can be broken down to simple shapes and lines.  I wanted to use this Bumblebee to show that.  Robots are a great example of shapes coming together to make a figure.

Check it out, examine it, and break it down. Happy cartooning!!

The Art of Making People Like You

Remember the good ol days when all it took was an extra cookie in your lunch box. As an adult those days are over, unless you have a cookie I can have, and you have to use something else, jokes. This can be a good thing or a bad thing. Have you ever met a nice person just to find out that they are dryer than beef jerky, always a sad day. Even the evil boss that hates everybody, it almost makes this art a necessity for the career minded. But there are no universal rules it all depends on the kind of friends your trying to make.

If your very opinionated and wonder why no one likes you, you don’t have to look any further than the things you say. The first rule of getting people to like you is keeping your big mouth shut.(this doesn’t go for everyone just the people who qualify for the opinion Olympics) I grew up a shy kid and I found out that most people form an opinion of you before you say anything. This strategy tends to work in the long run because the people that come up to you are very likeable people. Being friends with a well known good person puts you on peoples good side as soon as they associate them with you. For now lets not focus on the passive approach.

Favors are a great way to make friends. I remember someone saying to me, “ that guys is awesome because whenever he has money he will buy.” This was a foreign concept to me because I lived in the world where everyone should like you for no other reason than being a great person. I have done social experiments with the favor or the “cookie method” as I like to call it. The method is very easy, find a person you would like to be friends with strike up a conversation and pay for lunch(or whatever meal it is, you know what I mean). Suddenly when this person thinks of you they associate you with something positive just like a kid giving you a cookie and then becoming friends. Positive reinforcement is the real term but still works as long as you can keep conversation cool and casual.

Stay tuned for more tips on How to make people like you.