Cartooning

[Ajene]

Ok well i wanna get into cartooning, but i am looking for a site that teacher some cartooning style.
I wanna do something like Peanuts or Ed, Edd & Eddy

[BlightedArt]

Construct the basic shapes of things then use those faintly jotted in shapes as guidelines for the final lines. Other than that you really just need to try and draw from what you see and apply your style to it. Dont copy the styles of others... draw a few things from various artists / cartoonists, experiment with what you learn, then mould your own style.

[RyerOrdStar]

Those people didn't really learn cartooning like one would learn Engineering. It takes a lot of hard work, dedication, good ideas, and busting them out constantly to make it as a cartoonist.

[riceface]

thats a good looking question

[J Wilson]

While anatomy isn't quite as valuable as it would be for a painter (although it's not UNimportant either), you'll still want to draw a ton from life. You'll focus more on capturing body language and learning to exaggerate it to get moods, emotions, and actions across in the clearest way possible. Finding the actual cartooning style you want to use isn't so much something that can be taught, it's just what developes that makes it easier to get those exaggerated expressions across.

[BubbaGump]

I think cartooning is just the same as concept art and realistic drawings. You have to do your studies and copy from the masters--in this case other cartoonists before you. This doesn't mean passing the work off as your own, but using them as study tools to see what works and doesn't. Copy Calvin and Hobbes to learn how to push expressions, but DON'T copy Watterson's hands (because he sucks at 'em). Draw the cartoons you like and take what you want from them. This is how style evolves. Bruce Timm is influenced by Jack Kirby, Harvey Kurtzman, and Alex Toth. That's how his distinct style came to be.

Research the old cartoonists from the 30s, 40s, and 50s--the TRUE golden age--not the crap you see on Cartoon Network.

But the thing about most cartoonists and animators is that many of them were trained as fine artists before hand. They learned how to draw the correct way before exaggerating style. Mignola and Schulz made studies from Bridgman, Brad Bird and John Lassater took extensive figure drawing classes at Calarts, and if I recall correctly, the lead animator of the Flinstones was first and foremost a highly respectable fine artist who was displayed in many galleries around Pennsylvania.

If you think cartooning is a way to escape the classical way of drawing and an 'easier' alternative to realistic art think again, because you have to learn the realistic stuff, learn the cartoony stuff, then apply all your work into a piece that exaggerates reality and has life.

A portrait can extremely well rendered, capturing the interplay of light and shadow, the masses of the face and nose, and glint of light in the eye, but if it conjures up no feeling and emotion in the viewer--it's lifeless. When you can feel a drawing live, breathe, and exude life--a drawing that makes you laugh, cry, or think and one that you can see yourself in and relate to--well that's a cartoon.