Cartoon You

Yesterday we decided what shape our face was most like, today we will begin to make a cartoon version of ourselves. The shape of our face will be the most important thing.

Doodle it!

On your half page of A4 which you kept over from yesterday you should have a rough pencil sketch of the shape of your face. The more accurate the face shape the more the cartoon will look like you, so if you want a good likeness, now is the time to go over any areas that need changing with your pencil. Don’t worry about rubbing out mistakes, mistakes don’t really matter.

Just make sure you go over the lines you want to keep quite heavily with your pencil so you know what line you need to follow.

Copy it!

Next, we are going to copy the outline shape of your face from the top half of the paper to the bottom half.

It’s probably easier to draw smoothly if you pick quite a thick pen. A good felt tip that is not going to run out is ideal. You can use a biro or a gel pen, but this will make your line more wobbly.

When you are copying your pencil drawing don’t take your eye off the line you have to follow. Try and look at the pencil line with your eye and draw at the same time with your pen in your hand. This is quite a quick way of drawing, and you prabably won’t need to take your pen off the page very much.

If you make a mistake and you are not happy with your pen drawing:

• Cut the A4 paper from yesterday along the fold line (half way).
• Stick it or paper clip it to the top half of a fresh sheet of A4 paper.
• Now try again.
• You can do this as many times as you like.

When you are happy with your shape in pen, carefully add the neck using two lines. You don’t need to add the neck on the shapes you are not happy with.

Top Tip

Drawing like this takes practice, but it’s how many professional artists, illustrators and cartoonists work. This is because nobody gets things right the first time. Copying is important.

For Older Readers

Over the next few days we are going to add some features to our cartoon. We will also think about ways to make identical copies so you can start to develop different characters who all look like they belong in the same comic strip. If you want to do this really well you will need some clear tracing paper. Grease Proof paper might just about do.

Although it’s tempting to start adding eyes and ears and noses all over the place at this stage, try and save your best pen drawing for tomorrow when we will be adding eyes to our drawing.

Talk about it!

Which cartoons do you and your friends enjoy? On TV, in films, in books and magazines? What is it about the drawings that you like?

They might be:

• Funny
• Silly
• Lifelike
• Colourful
• Remind you of someone you know

Well done!

You are really learning some important stuff now!

If you are finding the instructions difficult to follow, you might need to ask an adult to help explain.

Stick with it and keep drawing!