Make A Cartoon Image of Yourself

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By cartoonize

As an addition to our series of cartoon hubs, this hub entitled make a cartoon image of yourself will be about the difference between symbols and stereotypes in cartoons, and drawing kids. If you're looking for a site to make a cartoon image of yourself, Cartoony.Me would be right for you!

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The symbols that editorial cartoonists invent and use are deliberate. They are clearly labeled. The reader recognizes them for what they are: stand-ins for the real thing.

Stereotypes, on the other hand, evolve gradually and result not necessarily from normal thought processes but from unconscious bias and maybe uncritical observation. They become the quick and easy way to communicate.

Nor can we fix the blame – if there is blame in using stereotypes – on any one group of cartoonists. All cartoonists use them. Liberals who make the most noise against stereotypes are as guilty as conservatives. To the liberal cartoonist, a conservative is an old lady in tennis shoes; to the conservative cartoonist, the liberal is a shaggy haired double domes buttinsky if not a bomb thrower. Al Capp, as a liberal, was as merciless in his use of stereotypes of conservatives as he was later, as a conservative, in his use of liberals.

In drawing kids, the cartoonist further exaggerates head size. The Peanuts characters, for instance, are about half head, half body. Some other characteristics of cartoon kids: they have a tendency to stick out their stomachs, although their backs remain ramrod straight. Their limbs are straight, like stove-pipes, thickest, perhaps, at the wrist and ankle. And kids hold their hands differently from adults.

The more the cartoonist learns about anatomy, the more possibilities he discovers for distorting the figure. He can learn about anatomy through books, of course, but, better, he can enroll in a life-drawing class or go out on sketching trips. For both faces and figures the cartoonist avoids easy to do side views and offers his readers, where possible, front views and back views.

A major lesson the cartoonist learns from his life classes or sketching trips is that every movement of the body brings on a counter movement. For instance, when the hips are pulled in one direction, the shoulders are pulled in the other. In drawing any figure for publication the cartoonist starts out by roughing in the body and then fitting clothes around it. In the inking-in process, drawing the figure is largely a matter of drawing clothes.

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