Caroline
If you’re passionate about drawing, learning how to draw cartoon people is essential. Once you’re capable of drawing cartoon people, you can draw much more complex drawings featuring various characters in the future.
To make it a lot easier for you, we have created a step-by-step tutorial on how to draw cartoon people.
This guide is summarized into 9 quick and easy instructions that come with simple illustrations.
What’s fun about this tutorial is that you can create a cartoon version of yourself!
Have fun and use your imagination and creativity!
How to Draw Cartoon People – Let’s get started!
Step 1
Start by drawing an upright oval shape on the upper portion of your paper. This creates an outline for your character’s head.
Make sure that the character will be drawn in the center by drawing an intersecting horizontal and vertical line across your paper to create reference lines.
The vertical line right above the horizontal line marks the spot where you should draw the outline of the head.
Step 2 – Outline the Head and the Upper Body
Right underneath the head, draw two angled lines facing the opposite directions to create the neck and the shoulder.
Then, bring both lines downward forming the sleeves of the shirt. Afterwards, draw an open-top square shape in between the sleeves to create the body of the shirt.
After completing this step, the top that your character is wearing should now be finished!
Step 3 – Afterwards, Draw the Pair of Trousers
Draw two elongated shapes side by side underneath the shirt. This forms the pair of trousers paired with the shirt that we drew in the previous step.
Make sure that the legs of the trousers are parallel, meaning the shapes should have a similar width and length.
Step 4 – Draw the Shoes Your Character is Wearing
Draw a slightly diagonal U-shaped line right underneath each leg of the trousers. This creates the pair of shoes.
Don’t forget to add a thin line at the bottom of the shoes to create the soles. At this point, your character’s outfit should now be complete!
Step 5 – Draw Your Character’s Left and Right Arm
Underneath each sleeve, draw two parallel slightly diagonal lines forming an arm.
Then, draw elongated pointed shapes at the bottom of each arm for the fingers.
Step 6 – Next, Draw Your Character’s Hair and Ears
Draw a semicircle on each side of the face forming the ears.
Then, draw the hairline and the top of the head starting on the temple located right above the ear all the way to the temple on the opposite side. Don’t forget to add pointed clumps of hair to add texture!
As you can see in the illustration, we’ve kept our character’s hair pretty simple. However, feel free to draw any hairstyle you want for your character. After all, it’s your character and your work of art!
Step 7 – Then, Add Details on Both Ears and Hair
Draw thin line streaks on the surface of the hair to add texture and make it appear realistic.
Remember, the lines should be drawn on the spot where you want your character’s hair to be parted.
For the details within the ears, simply draw a small curved line inside each ear.
Step 8 – Add Texture on Your Character’s Clothing
Draw an upward curved line to outline the collar hem of the shirt your character is wearing.
Then, moving on to the bottom, draw a curved line on each side of the pants to create the appearance of pockets.
Afterwards, draw an elongated rectangular shape on the upper middle of the pants for the zipper.
After finishing this step, the details on your character’s outfit should be complete.
Step 9 – Draw the Features on Your Character’s Face
Now, it’s time to draw your character’s facial features to complete the look.
Starting from the top to the bottom, draw two curved, pointed shapes right underneath the hairline. This forms a pair of arched eyebrows.
Remember, men typically have thicker, fuller eyebrows compared to women. So, keep that in mind whenever you’re drawing your character’s eyebrows. It all depends whether your character is a male or a female.
Afterwards, draw a wide oval shape underneath each eyebrow for the eyes. Then, draw a shaded small circle with an unshaded tiny dot inside within each eye.
Draw a small upward curve for the nose and a wider one to put a wide smile on your character’s face.
After you’ve finished drawing cartoon people, it’s finally time to make it colorful! This is where you can showcase your artistic skills especially your ability to mix and match various colors.
The colors you will choose for your drawing is entirely up to you! But here’s a useful tip: blend the colors white, yellow, red, and blue to create a customized skin tone color.
You may need to add more of a certain color depending on the complexion you’re trying to achieve.
Take note that skin tone colors are best achievable with easy to blend coloring materials like watercolor or acrylic paint. Have fun playing with colors and watch as your cartoon character comes to life!
Bonus: Make This Drawing Simpler With These Tips
The drawing of cartoon people that we created in this guide was designed to be fairly simple, but it could still be a bit tricky for some to draw. Luckily, we have a few tips that can help to make it a bit easier for you to do!
One of the first things you can do when drawing any person is to use a real person to pose for you. Even though this cartoon person is not particularly realistic, it can help to look at the real proportions of a real person.
This is also helpful if you would like to make some new poses for the character. Maybe their arms will be raised in a gesture, and even though it may seem simple, it can be harder than you think.
If you wanted to make your drawing of cartoon people look like a real person or just look a bit more distinct, then this could also be a great way to do so.
Another reason you may want to do this would be to add some other characters alongside this one. It could be fun to make some cartoon versions of friends and family members!
Another source of inspiration could be existing cartoon characters you’re a fan of. You can use them as inspiration for your drawing, and it can help you to get used to drawing cartoon styles.
Using a pencil to break down the drawing into simpler shapes such as circles and rectangles can also be a great help, as it allows you to map out the proportions of the drawing before adding finer details.
This will hopefully make your drawing a bit easier, but remember to have fun above all and just enjoy developing your style!
Here’s how you can make your cartoon people drawing even better…
Make this artwork even better with these helpful and fun art tips!
This guide showed you how to create a basic cartoon people drawing, and it is a fun and simple design.
We kept the details a bit simpler for this design, but you could add more to parts such as his shirt, pants and face. You could even give him a brand new hairstyle!
Changing details that are as simple as these can make a huge difference to the design, and you can create a really unique character.
We drew a man in this guide, but you could create any kind of character you want! You can use the steps we went through and just change a few things depending on what you want.
For example, if you would like to draw a woman, you could change the hair and face with just a few details changed throughout the rest of the drawing.
If you have a hard time creating a new character, you could use a photo of a person or even use a mirror to help you.
At the moment, your cartoon people sketch shows the character standing in a white void, and it can be fun to draw a background setting for him to be a part of.
There are so many different settings you could put him in! He could be standing in a park, at a carnival or maybe by the ocean.
These are just a few ideas you could try, but we’re sure you can think of all sorts of different background ideas.
Finally, we think you could make your cartoon people drawing even better by using a different range of colors.
We went over this in the guide, but you can also incorporate different art tools, mediums and techniques to make this character really stand out.
If you changed details or added a background, then these can be colored in as well. What favorite colors do you think you will use for this character and his surroundings?
Your Cartoon People Drawing is Complete!
Hopefully, you enjoy this step-by-step cartoon people drawing tutorial. If you had a good time drawing a cartoon character, we think you will also have fun drawing a man or a woman.
Go ahead and check out our “How to Draw” catalog to explore many more drawing tutorials!
As soon as you’ve drawn and colored your cartoon character, don’t forget to show off your masterpiece!
Take a photo of your artwork and share it on various social media platforms. And while you’re at it, make sure you like our Facebook page too!
We would love to see your awesome cartoon character!
