How to Draw Realistic Cartoons

Video Transcript

"Alright folks in this clip I'm going to teach you how to draw realistic cartoons. Or basically realistic drawings because cartoons are not realistic whatsoever. What we're going to do is we're going to start with, and what you ought to start with any drawing that is supposed to look realistic or not, the place to start is always the eyes. Because the eyes are essentially the soul of the body. And the more detail that you add to the eyes the more realistic your drawing will be. And when you're drawing the inner part of a realistic eye you do not want to add a lot of thickness. You just want to really focus in on the pupil itself. That will be the thing that will ultimately make or break your drawing. That is the window to the soul of the character. Make that look believable and you've got a really, really great start. Next step you're going to move straight up and do the eyebrows. Now the way that you can really capture the human body. Really just paying attention to regular life. Honestly like that's the best way by far to get a grasp on the way that the real human body looks. The eyelashes if you'll notice like in cartoons a lot of times people add a lot of detail to the eyelashes. This really sells the point that this drawing is in fact kind of an exaggeration or a distortion of reality whereas in real life eyelashes really are not nearly as big as we exaggerate them into being. Another thing is the nose. In cartoons it's very, very common to not add a lot of detail to the nose simply because you don't want to, anytime you add a lot of detail to the nose it kind of is to show the character's a little bit more on the unattractive side. Whereas in reality our noses make us very unique so you don't want to call a great deal of attention but you definitely want to add the detail in there. Add the nostrils. Add all the things that really make a nose look like a nose. That, I would say, is very important. Move on down then to the lips. Also in cartoons it's, especially if you're drawing a woman, which it looks like I'm going to end up drawing here, it's very common place to kind of fudge this part of the details as well because lips are not easy things to draw. Not at all. If you draw them even just a little bit off the whole thing kind of falls apart. People often sort of shy away from it. But I, I don't know, I think people ought to welcome the challenge personally. Draw thick full lips and don't be afraid to get in there and add some detail to it either. Now the part that you want to kind of be tricky about is adding the detail in this particular face, in the face. The more lines and the wrinkles you draw in the more age you give to your character. Even just by drawing a simple line from the nose down to the mouth that adds a certain amount of age to the character. Now one thing I would say, clearly define the outline of your characters face. Do it lightly at first because you don't necessarily, it's hard to go back and correct that if you make a mistake. I'd say, the biggest, the focal part of the drawing ought to be the characters eyes and face. That ought to be the most clear portion of the drawing by far. Hair and everything else if you want to go into a great deal of detail with that, absolutely be my guest but I feel like you'd almost be taking something away from the drawing if you really go into too much detail here. For my money you should just let the face and the eyes do the talking for the drawing and not worry as much about what you're doing with the hair. Because unless this drawing is about the hair? Hair is just a very, very distracting thing. In real life hair anywhere else honestly it gets in there and really just kind of steals the show. It's one of the first things we notice, whether you realize it or not, about other human beings, is their hair. So unless you want the picture to be about the hair don't add as much detail to the hair. I'm going to come down here and draw the bottom half of this pony tail number. The neck. And basically this is essentially what a professional sketch artist at a police station or something like that would do. They come in, they'd be given details of the person that they're supposed to be sketching and they just kind of work their way through it a step at a time. That's essentially what realistic cartooning is. It's the ability to go in and capture as best you can what reality looks like as opposed to fantasy. Which is often the case with cartoons. So here we have a realistic drawing of a human being. A real human being. And that is essentially how you learn how to draw realistic cartoons. Steady, real people. And obviously practice a whole, whole, whole lot. And there you go."