Cartoon Character Maker

Cartoon characters are built from simple shapes and a few flat colors, so that they can be drawn again and again and still be recognized. That is the difference between a cartoon and an illustration: a cartoon is designed to be repeated.

This maker draws in a flat, outlined style that suits that job. Characters come out with clean edges and solid colors, ready to drop into a comic panel, a slide or a storybook page.

Shape tells the audience who to trust

Cartoonists use shape as shorthand, and you can do the same with part choices.

• Round reads as friendly. Curly fringe, Space buns, Dot or Round eyes, a Hoodie.
• Square reads as steady. Short crop, Straight brows, a Blazer, Boots.
• Sharp reads as dangerous or clever. Messy spikes, Sharp eyes, a Fang, Horns, a Cape.

Three colors and stop

Classic cartoon characters rarely use more than three or four colors, because fewer colors are easier to remember and to reproduce. Choose one for hair, one for the top and one for the bottom. Use primary colors for young audiences and softer ones for gentler stories. Keep each character's colors the same in every scene.

Using the characters in your pages

Choose the Transparent background before downloading, and the character becomes a cut-out you can place over any scene. For a comic, download several expressions of the same character by changing only the eyes and mouth. For a picture book, keep one image per character and move them around your backgrounds.