Drawing Felix stuck in the field

Huskies to the rescue!

Felix here has been forced to land his plane in a muddy field. He rarely seems to make it back to the airfield…

To help pull the plane out of the mire, he’s enlisted a team of huskies.

In this article I’m going to show you how I went about creating this cartoon.

Recycling previous images

Felix the flying fox

I chose to recycle a plane I’d used previously, see above, and also a pose of Felix, see below.

Felix the fox pose

Outline of the background

Background outline

I sketched a quick outline of the background. I wanted a barren, muddy farm field effect. As though he had landed in the middle of a big farm in the countryside.

Adding the plane

Airplane in field

I’ve now added the plane. I’m going to later add some mud to overlap the wheels. You’ll notice that the plane has suddenly gained a colourful tail and a lighter shade of grey compared to the example I was recycling from. I copied this one from a different layer. It’s an easier enough fix, so I’ll change it before I complete the cartoon.

Adding Felix

Fox and airplane

I’ve now added Felix. I’m going to paint the tail of the plane grey as I don’t want it to distract attention away from Felix. Felix’s coat is going to the only bright colour in the cartoon so that he’ll instantly catch the viewer’s eye.

Adding the huskies

Adding huslies

I thought huskies made sense because people associate them with working as a team to help pull something. I’m not quite sure where Felix managed to find them. He is quite resourceful, even though he’s not the best pilot…

Colouring the huskies

Colouring the huskies

The muted colours of the huskies worked well, as I wanted the only bright colour in the finished cartoon. I’ve still got to get around to altering the plane colour!

Colouring the background

Colouring the background

I wanted the background to be quite drab so as the make the characters, and Felix especially stand out.

Almost finished now, I just have to add some shadow, a bit more mud, and to change the plane colour.

The finished cartoon

The huskies help Felix

Over to you

What steps do you take when you work on your own cartoons?

It can be quite useful to take a few minutes to think about your own cartooning process. There might be something you can change to make it more efficient or help you spot mistakes.

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