How to Make a Cartoon

Making a cartoon can be a long, complicated process, but if you have a strong enough desire to see your own stories on display in animated form, the end result can be well worth the work. If you want to make your own cartoon, here's what you'll need to do.

Consider your resources. Your imagination might be limited, but chances are, your budget and your talent are not. When brainstorming a new idea for a cartoon, keep in mind how much you can afford to invest in the process and what your artistic skill is capable of producing.

• If you are a beginner, you might want to stay away from stories and themes that require animating complex scenes, like huge battles or intricate machinery. Your animating skills may need to be refined and practiced more before you are ready to tackle a project of that size.
• Also keep in mind that you will need more equipment depending on how complex you want your cartoon to be. A claymation cartoon with two dozen characters and four sets will require more supplies than a cel animation with only one scene. If budget is an issue, keep it short and simple.

Think about length. The right length for your cartoon will vary based on the market you are trying to distribute it in. Knowing the length from the start will help you brainstorm a story that can fit within that time frame.

• If you want to create a cartoon that could develop into a long-term show, your cartoon will need to be either 11 minutes or 20 to 25 minutes.
• Cartoon movies can go anywhere from 60 minutes to 120 minutes.
• If a one-time cartoon made for the Internet is all you want to create, you can create a short running from 1 to 5 minutes. Creating anything longer may turn people away from viewing it.

Know your intended audience. Even though cartoons are traditionally aimed at kids, there are many cartoons made for older adolescents and adults. The age group and other audience demographics should shape the ideas you come up with.

• For example, a cartoon about something tragic, like the death of a loved one, would be better reserved for a slightly older audience. If a young audience is your target, you would be better off choosing a topic that is a little simpler to understand and more concrete.

Work from your experiences. Another way to put this would be, “write what you know.” Many storytellers write stories based on events, feelings, or relationships they experienced in their own lives. Make a list of possible life events you have been through that could be the underlying idea behind a cartoon.

• If you want to create a cartoon with a serious tone, think about life experiences that really mold and shape you: an unrequited love, the loss of a friend, working hard toward a goal that seemed impossible, etc.
• If you want to create something more humorous, take an everyday situation like waiting in traffic or waiting on an email and exaggerate how difficult the situation is in a funny way.
• Alternatively, you can use something already funny to create a humorous cartoon.

Use your imagination. Of course, there are many plot that do not involve any trace of life experience. You can use your interests and your imagination to craft an entirely new premise, as long as you include enough relatable details to help people connect to the characters or the story.

• Relatable details include underlying themes that are universally appealing. For example, most people can relate to a coming-of-age story, regardless of whether that story takes place in the contemporary real world, in a futuristic space-age setting, or in a sword-and-sorcery fantasy setting.

Design an appealing protagonist. Make a list of character traits you would like to see in a protagonist. Write positive features as well as faults to avoid making a character too perfect.

• This is an important step no matter how simple or complex your cartoon will be. While a character in a longer, more serious cartoon will need to develop more, a short, funny cartoon will need a protagonist with a clear goal and clear character traits that allow him or her to react to the conflict in whatever way he or she does.

Write a script if there is any dialog. If any of the characters in your cartoon will have spoken lines, you will need a voice actor to recite those lines, and your voice actor will need a written script so that he or she knows what needs to be said.

• You need to know the script before you can animate the cartoon. The mouth moves in different ways for different phonemes, and you will need to animate these different mouth movements in a believable way so that any voice overs you add later will match them.

Jot down a basic narrative of events. If there is no dialog in the cartoon, you might be able to skip a formal script. You should still write down a basic narrative of events so that you can keep track of the story and its different pieces, though.

• Write multiple drafts of any script before beginning the production phase. Write your first draft, set it aside, and come back to it in a day or two to see how you can improve upon it and make it flow more effectively.

Divide your story into main parts. A short cartoon may only consist of a single scene, but if your cartoon is a little longer, you might need to divide it into multiple scenes or acts for easier management.

Sketch out each major change in action. When you sketch out a formal storyboard, each major change in action should be shown in one of the storyboard squares. Minor changes should be described, but may not need to be drawn out.

• Use basic shapes, stick figures, and simple backgrounds. A storyboard should be fairly basic.
• Consider drawing your storyboard frames on index cards so that you can rearrange them and move parts of the story around as necessary.
• You can also include notes about what is happening in each frame so that it will be easier to remember later on.

Familiarize yourself with the different types of animation. In general, most forms of animation will fall under the categories of cel animation, stop motion animation, 2D computer animation, and 3D computer animation.

Try your hand at cel animation. Cel animation is the traditional method of making a cartoon. You will need to hand draw each cel or sheet of animation and take pictures of those cels with a special camera.

• Cel animation utilizes a principle similar to the way a flipbook works. A series of drawings is produced, and each image varies slightly from the next. When displayed in rapid succession, the differences create the illusion of movement.
• Each image is drawn and colored on a transparent sheet known as a "cell."
• Use your camera to photograph these drawings and edit them together using animation editing software.

Use stop motion techniques. Stop motion is another traditional form of animation, but it is used less commonly than cel animation. “Claymation” is the most common form of stop motion animation, but there are other puppets you can use and make for this sort of cartoon, as well.

• You can use shadow puppets, sand art, paper puppets, or anything else that can be moved into a range of positions.
• Each movement must be small. Take a photograph of each movement after making it.
• Edit the photographs together so that they are displayed in rapid succession. When viewed in this manner, the eye will perceive movement.

Consider 2D computer animation. You will need a special computer program for this type of animation, and the product will likely look like a smoother version of a cartoon animated with cel animation.

• Each 2D computer animation program will work differently, so you will need to find tutorials for the specific program you intend to use in order to learn how to do it.
• A common example of 2D animation is any cartoon created using Adobe Flash.

Animate in 3D using computers. As with 2D animation, you will need special software to produce 3D animated cartoons, as well.

• In some sense, 3D computer animation is similar in style to stop-motion animation, but the graphics can range from seeming very blocky and pixelated to being very life-like.
• As with 2D computer animation, each animation software works a little differently than the others. Examples include Maya and 3D Studio Max.