Spongebob Squarepants – I could do better than that!

I’ve always been a big fan of modern cartoons and animated series. I just love the artwork of the shows. But the question I have for you is, do you think you could draw better cartoon characters?

Most people I speak to say to me “I could do better than that!, it’s easy to draw cartoons” but thinking about it, I really don’t buy into this. I think people answer like that for 2 reasons:

(1) ‘The cartoon’s jokes are often very childish and unsophisticated’ – rocks falling on heads, eyes bulging out when a character is surprised lol, so a person thinks…this is childish and so the Artwork itself is childish and I could easily do better…Not so!

(2) ‘Most of it is done with computer animation, the computer does all the work!’ Yes there is case for this, that lots of cartoons are done with computers, such as Southpark or the Simpson’s movie used computers at certain points etc…But…

…you are forgetting that the hard part is the initial design of the characters and how each setting or character complements the next one. (So simplistic a task you may think?) It is the intricacy and the nuances of the drawings where the genius lies…A whole lot of thought went into getting Homer Simpson looking right with his 2 strings of hair or the grey parts of his face to show him unshaven or getting Cartman to look like he’s typical outraged self; Colours & colour combinations, shapes, tones…I suspect the creators spent months if not years slowly building up each character and each setting: Mo’s Tavern, South Park Elementary…

Who’d have thought a family of yellow coloured people would ever be a hit?…on paper that doesn’t work does it? then u haven’t seen The Simpsons!

Who’d have thought a bunch of really simplistic drawings of characters with basic backgrounds…badly animated by computer would work? Then you don’t watch Southpark!

Of course the shows are brilliantly written and are laugh out loud funny, but the thing that makes it work is the design, the original drawings that all subsequent shows are based on, which give the shows their unique ‘Feel,’ there own little cartoon universe.

I can tell you something for free, id love to live in Springfield! :0)

thank you

Russell