Scenario: you’re a cartoonist. You’ve thought of the perfect joke and written the perfect caption. You’ve devised a beautiful composition. Your linework, shading, and gestures? Flawless. You sign your name and hold up your finished cartoon. Hmm, something’s...off. But what? You sadly call your cartoonist friend, inform them you still have work to do, and will not be able to join them tonight at the old, lavish speakeasy only cartoonists know about (Sam makes a Boulevardier that is to die for).
Then your friend tells you something: they can’t go out either, because something is off about their cartoon, too. And that something is their character’s face.
Faces are a deceptively difficult part of the cartooning process. As the lead actor in a soundless, motionless art form, a character’s face can totally make or break a cartoon. No pressure! So this week at Toonstack, we’re sharing our thoughts, tips, and tricks on all things faces.
-Johnny
Ellis Rosen
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Hilary Campbell
Ellis is right. It’s really flippin’ hard to get expressions right when you’re a cartoonist that is not Will McPhail. Here is a cartoon that I kept drawing and redrawing because I needed the wife to be the one talking, but needed the husband to have a mouth semi-open in the pit of despair kind of look, but the mouth couldn’t be so open that you don’t know who is talking. And how many lines is too many lines around the eyes? This shit is TOUGH YOU GUYS. Anyways, I’m gonna go watch Vertigo again.
Amy Kurzweil
I’ve noticed that a lot of the faces I draw have mouths that are situated unreasonably low on the face. Like, on the average human face I draw (not pictured here) you could fit a whole other large-sized nose below where the large-sized nose I’ve drawn ends and the mouth I’ve drawn begins. I think this is because almost all the characters I draw are experiencing what that teen pawn pictured above is experiencing: anxious wonder at the giant hand in the sky that draws them into existence and controls everything they do while forever stamping them with a look of anxious wonder on their faces. In the classes I teach, I’ve often remarked on how I can’t help but make, on my own real face, the expressions that I’m trying to draw. Drawing is such an embodied mode of expression — it helps me to do or feel in real space the thing I’m trying to illustrate in symbol space. But I never thought to interrogate the natural tics I have with drawing faces, and how my low mouths may reveal something about my own natural state of constant anxious wonder. And now here I’ve just invented the latest personality test craze. Move aside Myers Briggs, here comes Amy’s Personality Faces. I’m an LMBE: Low Mouth Big Eyes.
Colin Tom
This drawing might loosely be influenced from a conversation I had with several New Yorker cartoonists over lunch. The table was in excited agreement over a story they had read—something with a lot of pages—chapters even. I hadn’t read it myself, but I chipped in with “Oh are you guys talking about a book?” I still don’t know if everyone was talking about a book.
Oftentimes I’ll draw a face with dots for eyes but I’ll throw a circle around the dot to really drive an expression home if it needs to convey something over the top. The outside characters are supposed to be a little anime leaning in their intensity. Their muscled heads engulf tiny expressions that are bursting with knowledge and unreasonable buffness. The central character’s head is equally as small as his face and his eyes are meant to be expressionless but also looking inward a bit—he’s repressing an inner dialogue.
They all have great bodies though, good job guys.
Navied Mahdavian
Leonardo da Vinci (or was it Danny Devito?) once wrote that when we paint, we paint ourselves. This was definitely the case for Leo/Danny (for the ease of the reader, from here referred to simply as Da Vinco) who painted himself into everything. While I can’t paint, regardless of what IG user ThisIsNotNaviedsMom says, I can draw, and I definitely draw myself into everything. I’m not sure why Da Vinco did it (for the ease of the writer, from here referred to simply as Da), but I tend to rely on reference photos when I draw, the majority of which are of myself. I drew god in the above cartoon based on this reference photo. It worked particularly well in this case because my eyebrows tend toward a god-esque bushiness, regardless of IG user ThisIsNotNaviedsDad’s recent comment, “What a handsome boy.”
Johnny DiNapoli
I find myself spending the most time on my characters’ mouths, especially when they’re speaking. If I curve the mouth up too high, they’ll look too happy. If I curve the mouth down too low, they’ll look too upset. If the mouth is open too wide, they’re yelling, and if the mouth isn’t open enough, they don’t look like they’re speaking at all. I’m happy with how our talking snail’s face came out here, and I think it’s the mouth that does it. He’s panicking, but also trying to play it cool. So yeah, if you know any snails looking for a commissioned portrait, I’m your guy!
For Your Pleasure: Cartoon Extras
Pre-order Murder Book, Hilary Campbell’s upcoming graphic memoir our November 9th!
Pre-order Send Help! a desert island cartoon collection by Ellis Rosen and Jon Adams!
Join Amy Kurzweil on Patreon!
See more of Colin Tom’s work on Cargo Collective!
Follow Kendra Allenby as she walks the Continental Divide Trail for 5 months!
Be sure to check out Shelby Lorman’s newsletter, Please Clap!
The same goes for Sofia Warren’s advice newsletter, You’re Doing Great!
See more cartoons from Ellis Rosen’s weekly Junk Drawer!
Yes, we like exclamation points!