Cartoon Study and a Hello to Everyone!

Hi, my name is Pedro Vargas and I'm new to this blog!

I'm super psyched that I get to participate in all these cartoon studies along with all the talented people here!

I've been looking back at some the old posts of everyone's work here and I'm really amazed how extremely dedicated everyone is into doing some well made cartoon-type drawings. And everyone's showing some vast improvements! I'm really impressed!

Nobody wants cartoons to die and everyone here is supporting to save it, which is awesome!

Watching everyone's work along with reading all the critiques has motivated me to improve my skills as a cartoonist.

So here's my first study. I chose something basic to start off and here it is:


Here I made the TV, characters, and couch into two separate clear shapes, which are the two overall forms you see below in the drawing. I left out the rope and lettering to focus more on what was going on in the drawing.

The characters and the chair are in one big shape and the TV shape is the other. That way it would be obvious for me to see the composition as a whole.


I made a transparency in Photoshop so you can see how I fit things together and also checked my proportions...

I then fixed both the shapes more here.


I also added some more distinctive features like the overall shape of the two characters, which is the big oval over the chair and started to build up the chair more by adding the arm and back rest.

I checked to see my proportions in PS and then fixed them.


I then added the construction of both characters and added more details on the TV like the screen and buttons.

fixed the proportions in PS...
and then added all the details that were in the drawing
I really liked how it came out except, of course, for a couple of little things. They look a bit squashed on the left and right sides of their heads. I made both their heads way too distorted and threw all the features inside their heads WAY out of proportion.


I tend to sort of warp things like that especially with heads on characters. Too wonky like John says.

I used to not pay attention to it before, but I'm trying to avoid that. I want to make sure everything makes sense in a drawing and for the viewer to see it like that as well.

Pixies top part of his ear is a bit high up and the screen on the TV could be fixed up a bit more. Other than that I think it looks pretty good overall. At least I got the feel of the drawing down I think.

Next time when I do a study I'll be more conscious and try to take things little by little and not warp and distort things too much.


I want to to do more studies like this as I continue to progress.

Feel free to critique this and any comments are highly appreciated!