Simplification in Cartooning

The Famous Artists Cartoon Course uses a lawn mower to demonstrate the importance of simplification.

"Here is a photo of a power mower, straight from your morgue [photo reference file]."

"Here it is drawn in pencil and ink line. It has been simplified a bit, but it's still not as simple as it could be."

"Ah! This is what we have been working for—your reader will have no doubt as to what this is, even though we have cut out about seventy percent of the detail — and it will reproduce better."

"Of course you could spend hours copying every detail, putting in every nut and bolt. This would be great if you were selling lawn mowers — but you are not. All you want is to let your reader know that it is a lawn mower. Maybe you're the type that's just nuts about drawing lawn mowers — don't get carried away. Simplify, simplify and let your reader's imagination fill in the details. If you draw the lawn mower in complete detail, and the other props in the panel are simplified, your lawn mower will be out of key with the rest of the drawing."

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The Famous Artists Cartoon Course is available as downloadable PDFs for free. Thanks to Mike O'Brien of Random Nerds