Cartooning is not about drawing, it’s about telling stories. Yes, even when you are drawing a single illustration, you are telling a story. Cartooning is all about expressing your thoughts. And it’s his thoughts expressed beautifully through his cartoon characters that set him apart from other average cartoon creators.

But like in any other field of life, here too you must learn to walk before trying to run. In order to express your thoughts and ideas through your cartoon characters, you must first master the skill of drawing cartoons. Then of course you can use your cartoon drawing skills to tell the story to your heart’s content.

To be skillful in cartoon drawing you have to face a learning curve. You can’t just decide to be a cartoonist and then copy some popular cartoon figures and become an accomplished cartoonist who is rich and famous. If you are lucky and talented with a keen sense of observation, you can learn a trick or two by making copies of figures from popular cartoons. But that is too inadequate to be of any use.

There are several ways you can take to learn how to draw cartoons: you can join cartoon school or take a home study course or follow a book by an expert cartoonist; The bottom line is that you need to follow the steps. Like you should first learn how to draw 3d shapes, then learn how to stretch, squish those 3d shapes into your drawing. Next you need to practice things like drawing hands and head before moving on to movement and emotion and advanced stuff like that.

If that sounds like a lot of work, you’re right. But what you achieve in the end is worth working for. However, if you’re smart, you can use the tips you’ll discover here to make the whole learning process quick and painless.

1. ==> Don’t start with computers. I agree, I run the risk of sounding retroactive. But here I am not completely opposed to computer use, no sane person can do that. But for beginners there is no alternative to using pencil and paper.

There are several programs that help you so much that you can go ahead even without learning how to draw a smooth line. This kind of over-reliance on computers early on always backfires down the road.

2. ==> Nail the fact in your mind that the construction of humans, animals, cars and most of the things we see around us are complex 3D structures even though we draw them on paper which is 2D. So when you draw, you need to mentally analyze your model in terms of 3D shapes like spheres and boxes and not in terms of 2D shapes like circles and rectangles.

Also, when drawing something on paper (ie 2D), look for and discover the 3D shapes that make up the character.

3. ==> Most of the cartoon or figure drawing tutorials always start with some basic 3D shapes and after a series of steps end up in a complete and beautiful figure. This technique is very effective for learning to draw complex figures from simple shapes. But what I am going to tell you will make your learning rate even faster. In fact, it is a very simple way to use the same tutorial. Just much more effective.

What you need to do is start where the tutorial ends and work back from there. See the whole figure and try to recognize the basic shapes of the ingredients. And check your analysis against the exact shapes used in the tutorial.

This will give you a very comprehensive exercise in recognizing basic shapes. And after a while you will be analyzing the real life around you like an expert. Just take your time and practice this technique, and see how quickly your cartoon drawing skill will improve.

Drawing caricatures is pure fun for both professionals who make caricatures for a living and hobbyists who draw caricatures just for personal pleasure. I don’t know what your goal is, but I hope the tips here are useful to you. Never stop learning – there is so much to learn and even more fun in the process. Happy journey!