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Drawing cartoons is a fun way to spend an afternoon and can even be parlayed into a career with a lot of practice, some great opportunities, and solid networking skills.  But what a lot of people don’t realize is just how many solid drawing skills figure into a great cartoon.  Take the picture below for example, found on how-to-draw-funny-cartoons.com.

You’ve probably seen similar step-by-step procedurals with other cartoon figures.  Identifying basic shapes is crucial to getting the overall subject right.  The only thing that makes it “cartoony” instead of realistic is the stylized, simplified lines and shapes.  The shapes are just not refined the way they would if you were trying to draw a realistic dog, as shown below in this excerpt from my Basic Shapes lesson.

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