Book Review: How to draw and paint crazy cartoon characters by Vincent Woodcock

Now it's been a while since I read the book, but it is also one of the books that stuck with me. Vincent Woodcock started his career in the Richard Williams Studio. If you don't know Richard Williams is, he designed Roger Rabbit and wrote "THE" standard book on handdrawn animation.

He wanted to be an artist, but Vincent Woodcock started there as a delivery boy. In the book he shares his encouraging story how he had managed to work his way up. However that's just the introduction, the main content is about as the name of the books says, drawing crazy cartoon characters.

It has all the standard content you would expect of such a book like how to draw hands, faces, bodies, expression etc. But this books also shows how to caricature, use different lights and it also talks about color harmony and model sheets. So it has a lot of content, very good but also short content. It has only about 120 pages, I own the german version, so mine might differ from yours a little bit.

That said, altough short, it is a very good book and full of very nice artwork. When you look at his work you will hopefully see that he must have had some great mentors, it looks like disney school with a little weird flavour added on top.

If you are new to character design, drawing, concept art or whatever you might be into, you might feel that there is a ton of good books on how draw this and that. WRONG, the reality is there are literally only a couple of books that are really good. Most of those how to draw books contain bad art and not necessarily bad advice but often times they do as well.

Vincent Woodcock's book is one of the good books, and yeah this is my personal opinion but to explain this further, what is it that I look for in these books. Proper construction, perspective, knowledge of human anatomy, proportion, design. Furthermore convincing poses and expressions and a ton of other concepts, but the list would be too long. People often do not realize how much knowledge and effort is necessary to produce high quality cartoon drawings.

It also takes some time to train your eye and see the differences between good and bad art, I may not be the best artist in the world and I also don't have a huge understanding of fine and modern art ;), but I believe I have a reasonable understanding of design and art you would see in entertainment and games. So the thing I want to get across is that there are only a few pearls that teach you the right things and this book is one of them. You shouldn't waste your money on bad books, or bad advice.

Some additional personal thougts on art, people, fruit n' shit: You might ask why would I want to learn something about cartooning or disney style animation if I can learn how to do some cool realistic concept art?? Don't get me wrong I love concept art and teachers like Scott Robertson for example. But what I think a lot of aspiring artists forget is: what are you doing it for?? You might have heard this before but it's about telling stories and conveying emotions.

I often look at art and think: "OH man, that's looks awesome, I would love to paint like that!", but a minute later I have forgotten what I just looked at. The only art I remember is art that makes me laugh or tells me a story, or even makes me think. Now not only cartooning is able to do that, that would be a dumb thing to say, but good cartoons own those essentials. They make everything as clear and comprehensible as it gets. Sorry, I had to get that out of my system :)

Anyway here's a link to the book:

How to Draw and Paint Crazy Cartoon Characters: Create Original Characters with Lots of Personality (Quarto Book)

And here's the video of a flip trough: