Style branch · 1900s → today

Cartoon & Animation

Drawing characters that come alive

Cartooning is the art of making a character — a face with a personality, a body that moves like that personality would move. Animation adds time. 24 drawings = 1 second of life. Patience plus play.

What this style actually is

Cartooning is character design + simplification. Take a face. Strip it to the minimum that still reads as that person, that emotion, that energy. Disney called this 'Plus-ing' — find the essence, then exaggerate it just enough.

Animation is cartooning plus time. You're not drawing one image, you're drawing a sequence that adds up to motion. Traditional animation is 24 drawings per second; modern animation can be less if the timing is clever. Either way, you're a flipbook with extra steps.

The lineage runs from early Disney through Hanna-Barbera through anime through Pixar through every YouTube animator working today. Cartooning is one of the oldest art lanes that has survived every technology change — because the fundamentals (clear character, expressive motion, distinct silhouette) don’t change.

Who shaped it

The artists who built this style.

Famous masters and the lesser-known voices who pushed the work forward.

Walt Disney + the Nine Old Men

1901-1966 + colleagues · American

Walt didn't draw most of what bears his name. The Nine Old Men (Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, Milt Kahl, and others) did. They wrote 'The Illusion of Life,' the bible of character animation, and trained every Pixar director that came after.

Known for: Snow White (1937) · Bambi (1942) · Pinocchio (1940)

Chuck Jones

1912-2002 · American

Director at Warner Bros. Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Wile E. Coyote, Road Runner. Mastered comic timing in a way that influenced every cartoon since. Said: 'Comedy isn't a science. It's an art.'

Known for: Duck Amuck (1953) · What's Opera, Doc? · The Dot and the Line

Mary Blair

1911-1978 · American

Disney's color stylist for Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Cinderella. Her concept art is more inventive than the finished films. Painted It's a Small World. Folk-art-meets-modernism color genius.

Known for: It's a Small World mural · Alice in Wonderland concept art

Lauren Faust

1974- · American

Created the modern My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Took a toy-driven property and made it into character-design philosophy. Also worked on Powerpuff Girls, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. Storyboarder's storyboarder.

Known for: My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic · Super Best Friends Forever

Bruce Timm

1961- · American

Defined the look of Batman: The Animated Series (1992). Brought Art Deco to superhero animation. Co-created the DC Animated Universe that ran for over a decade. His character silhouettes are textbook.

Known for: Batman: The Animated Series · Justice League Unlimited

Genndy Tartakovsky

1970- · Russian-American

Created Samurai Jack, Dexter's Laboratory, Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003). Master of pacing and visual storytelling without dialogue. Bridges Western cartoon tradition with Japanese aesthetic sensibility.

Known for: Samurai Jack · Primal · Hotel Transylvania

How to see it

Three things to notice in any work of this style.

🎭

The silhouette

Could you recognize the character from just the black outline? Disney's Nine Old Men said yes was the only acceptable answer. Mickey, Bugs Bunny, Pikachu — instantly readable in shadow.

🎯

Squash and stretch

Things compress when they hit (squash) and elongate when they move fast (stretch). It's the basic illusion of weight and energy in animation. Watch it in any Looney Tunes.

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Character color palette

Mickey: red shorts, yellow shoes, white gloves. Always. Iconic characters have 3-5 fixed colors that NEVER change. The palette IS the character.

How to practice it

Beginner to expert, in three tiers.

Pick the tier that fits where you are. Move up when the current tier feels too easy.

Beginner

Build characters.

  • One character, 30 expressionsPick a simple character (could be a drawn potato). Draw the same character with 30 different facial expressions. Happy, sad, terrified, suspicious, etc. This builds your expression vocabulary.
  • Flipbook animationSticky notes. Draw a tiny figure jumping. One drawing per page. 12-24 pages. Flip. You've made an animation. Your first second of motion.
  • Same character, three viewsFront, side, three-quarter. Same proportions. Same colors. Same costume. This is character-sheet work — what every animation studio uses.

Intermediate

Tell a story in 60 seconds.

  • Walk cycle8-12 drawings of a character walking. Repeats forever. Hardest fundamental in animation. Master this and the rest gets easier.
  • 60-second shortKrita (free) or Procreate. Plan it on paper first as a 12-panel storyboard. Then animate. Doesn't have to be perfect; has to be finished.
  • Character bibleFor your favorite original character, make: 3 turnaround views, 12 expressions, 5 poses, a color palette, a 1-paragraph backstory. This is what real studios call a 'pitch document.'

Advanced

Direct a finished short.

  • 3-5 minute finished shortStoryboard, voice record, animate, edit, score. Most beginners stop at the storyboard. Push through to a finished short. It will be rough. Finishing is the skill.
  • Submit to festival or YouTubeSet a public release date. Put it out there. The feedback will hurt. The skill it builds is irreplaceable.
  • Study one short you love, frame by framePick a 3-5 minute short that floored you. Scrub through it frame by frame. Take notes on every cut, every motion choice, every color choice. Then make your next short with what you learned.

Tools sized to this style

What this style asks for.

✏️

Pencil + light box

Or a sunny window. Traditional animation is layered drawings; you need to see through to the previous frame.

📓

Sticky notes / index cards

The cheapest flipbook tool in existence. Buy 200.

🖥️

Krita (free) OR Procreate ($)

Krita has frame-by-frame animation built in, free, professional. Procreate Dreams is $20 and amazing on iPad.

🎙️

Voice recorder

Your phone is fine. Animation works best when the voice acting drives the timing. Record dialogue FIRST, then animate to it.

🎼

Royalty-free music library

Pixabay, YouTube Audio Library. Sound transforms animation. A 90-second short with music is a piece. Without music it's a draft.

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Animation paper or transparent layer

Optional but classic. Light through layered drawings is how animation worked for 70 years before computers.

Animation can explain whatever the mind of man can conceive.— Walt Disney