Drawing a cartoon face often starts with an oval.
Drawing cartoon faces becomes easier the more you practice. To draw a face, pick a basic shape, such as an oval, then add features in their appropriate places. Study cartooning books or the work of cartoonists you admire. Try to draw various styles of faces to improve your artistic ability over time. By studying books or tutorials, you will learn proper placement and proportions for facial features. You can choose to follow, embellish or ignore the basics once you have mastered them.
Instructions
Drawing the Guidelines
1. Sketch a basic oval using your pencil. It does not have to be a perfect oval; many cartoon heads are larger at the top or bottom, or even wider than they are tall. There are no strict rules for drawing a cartoon head shape.
2. Draw a very light curved vertical line with your pencil to indicate the center of the face. This line will be erased later.
3. Make a light curved horizontal line about 3/4 of the way up the oval, if this is where the eyes will be. You may place the line elsewhere depending on where your cartoon face will be looking, or whether the head is pointed up, down or looking straight ahead. This line too will be erased later and serves merely as a guideline.
4. Draw another curved horizontal pencil line like the one in Step 3, near the middle of the head or a little lower. This serves as a base for the bottom of the nose.
Drawing the Features
5. Use a pencil to draw an ear on the side of the head between the two horizontal guidelines. If the cartoon face is looking straight ahead, draw another ear on the opposite side of the head. Draw a C shape (or backwards C) to make a basic ear.
6. Create eyebrows by making slightly arched lines along the top horizontal guide line. The shape and arch of the eyebrows could be used to indicate emotion.
7. Draw a nose along the vertical center line. The bottom of the nose should line up approximately with the bottom horizontal line. A nose could be drawn many ways: as a C, an L, a point or an arrow. Experiment or look at other cartoons for ideas.
8. Add eyes beneath the eyebrows by drawing ovals, football shapes or circles. Draw smaller circles within them for the pupils.
9. Make a mouth by making a curved line, curving up if a smile or down if a frown. Add smaller lines for the lips, if desired.
10. Add hair, if desired.
11. Trace all the lines you'd like to keep with a pen. Thicken some of them in areas that seem they should be thicker.
12. Erase the guidelines.
