Action

The world would be pretty boring If there was no action and so would your cartoon. There are several ways to give your cartoons motion. Life.

Look at the cars above. Notice how they lean one way or the other. Leaning is a good way to bring a cartoon to life. Anything that is moving at a good speed should lean. Look at the cars again. Why does one lean back(top car) and the other forward? The top car is accelerating(moving faster and faster) the other is traveling at a constant speed. This works fine even for human characters.

Look at the above cartoon. The character doesn't care about the ball. He's just standing there wishing he was somewhere else.

Leaning the character is not necessary(it probably would make it better though). In the image above you can see we add motion by puting the arms and legs out. Nobody would be standing around like that. He must be moving. Notice that his arms and legs pivot around the shoulder and hip joints. So the red circles tell me where the finger tips and toes should be.

On the next page is the final cartoon, edited for more action.

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