I'm really starting to wonder how trying to draw realistically can help cartooning. The closer I study what things really look like, the more I realize how much more complex reality is than cartoons. That probably sounds obvious.
Some things just can't be captured in line alone, for one thing.
I have been trying to figure out the mechanics and structure of the whole mouth area and it's a nightmare of complexity. -at least for me. It sure has nothing to do with the way we cheat mouth shapes for cartooning.
I have the typical cartoonists' problem of drawing eyes and heads bigger than they are in reality. When I think of how many cartoon productions have tried to animate in a realistic style, my mind boggles at the pure futility of it. It's hard enough to do one drawing that's remotely realistic, let alone trying to move it in space.I think cartooning is almost a completely different art than illustration, even though you sometimes see some overlap.
Cartoonists - at least the best ones- rely more on imagination than complex drawing skills. The kind of skills that great illustrators have must derive from some totally different otherworldly sense than what cartoonists create with.
