Christopher Hart - Monstrously Funny Cartoons

Copyright 2014 by Cartoon Craft LLC

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Watson-Guptill Publications,
an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random
House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.watsonguptill.com

WATSON-GUPTILL and the WG and Horse designs are registered
trademarks of Random House LLC

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hart, Christopher, 1957
Monstrously funny cartoons / Christopher Hart. First Edition.
pages cm
1. Monsters in art. 2. CartooningTechnique. I. Title.
NC1764.8.M65H377 2014
741.51dc23
2014018093

Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8230-0716-5
eBook ISBN: 978-0-8230-0717-2

Design by M80 Design and Katy Brown
Production by Debbie Berne Design

v3.1

Id like to thank the frighteningly good crew at Watson-Guptill/Ten Speed Press,
my preternaturally prescient literary agent, Susan Schulman,
and all of my terrifyingly talented loyal readers.

BOO! Cartoon monsters are at the pinnacle of their popularity. Every year seems to bring another blockbuster animated movie featuring funny zombies, ghouls, aliens, vampires, mummies, and more. Hit films such as Shrek ; Monsters, Inc. ; Monsters vs. Aliens ; Hotel Transylvania ; and Despicable Me have catapulted these characters to the top of everyones list of favorites. If youre interested in learning how to draw cartoon monsters, this is the perfect book to get you started. It features clear and easy-to-follow step-by-step instruction. Its also an excellent resource for more experienced artists and cartoonists who need to be fluent in the latest, most popular genres. My goal has always been to give you the tips and pointers you need to stay on top of changing cartooning styles. This book will keep you ahead of the curve.

There is a lot to drawing todays cartoon monsters. Gone are the days when you could just draw big, lumbering green goons. These new monsters have human foibles, coupled with inventive character designs. They are witty, flummoxed, sneaky, fearful, mischeivous, vainand more.

Ill introduce you to many valuable and useful tools you can use to create cartoon characters, including proportions, posture, symmetry and asymmetry, expressions, costumes, props and icons, and contrast. Youll also learn how to create humorous settings and layouts for your characters.

The art instruction techniques youre about to learn are based on sound art and design principles taught in major art schools across the country. Therefore, this books lessons may raise your skill level for drawing characters in any genre. Before I begin, a small word of caution: Please dont pet or feed the monsters. Its a really bad idea.

ZOMBIES are known as the quintessential always-moving-forward-but-never-taking-a-step-backward monsters. Like most monsters, they come with a well-established backstory: Theyre undead. This means that theyre slow and are determined to turn all humans into the undead, too. No one really knows why they want that so badly, but since its first on any zombies to-do list, Ill show you how to caricature zombie actions and how to give these monsters a fresh, humorous twist. For many cartoonists, zombies are delicious characters. For zombies, youre pretty delicious, too.

Zombie heads are just like yours and mine. The only real difference is the living dead part. And that results in bigger eyes and creepier mouths.

Drawing classic zombie eyes requires more than just drawing the pupils in the middle of the eyeballs. Thats what you draw for a stare. Zombies dont stare. They look with unfocused eyes. This means youll want to draw their eyes looking ever so slightly in opposite directions.

Normal eyes: The pupils are close together, and the pupils have small white highlights, which add liveliness