Okay, here’s my attempt at writing a blog post about my “cartoon mma” project, focusing on the process and mimicking the provided style:
Okay, so I messed around with this “cartoon mma” thing. Let me walk you through it.
First, I fired up my drawing tablet. I hadn’t touched it in ages, so that was the first hurdle. Dusting off the cobwebs, literally.
Then I started sketching. I knew I wanted to do something MMA-related, but with a cartoony twist. Think exaggerated features, maybe a little bit of humor. So I looked up some reference poses from actual MMA fights. Gotta have that realism, even in cartoons, right?
I roughed out a couple of figures. Stick figures at first, just to get the poses down. Then I started adding some bulk, some muscle. Think thick lines, bold shapes. I wanted it to pop.
- Head Shape: Big, round, cartoon-y
- Hands: HUGE. Like, comically large. Makes it funnier, I think.
- Exaggerated Muscles: You know, like those old superhero cartoons.
Next, I moved on to the details. Things like gloves, shorts, maybe a little bit of sweat flying off. That’s where it got tricky. I’m not a pro artist or anything, so it was a lot of trial and error. Erase, redraw, erase, redraw… you get the idea.
I spent ages on the faces. Getting the right expression is key. I wanted one guy to look super determined, and the other to look slightly panicked. It’s all in the eyebrows, man. And the mouth. I probably redrew those mouths like five times each.
After that came the inking. I used a thicker brush for the outlines, and a thinner one for the details. This is where the whole thing started to come together. The lines really made it pop.
I decided to keep it black and white. I could have colored it, but I thought the black and white gave it a certain grittiness that worked well with the MMA theme. Plus, coloring is HARD.
Then I added some shading. Just some basic stuff, to give it some depth. Nothing too fancy. I used a soft brush for that, and just lightly went over the areas that would be in shadow.
Finally, I threw in a background. Just a simple octagon shape, with some crowd noise scribbled in the background. I didn’t want the background to be too distracting. The focus should be on the fighters.
And that was it! “cartoon mma” project complete. Not perfect, by any means, but I had fun doing it. And that’s what matters, right?
I learned a few things along the way. Like, I need to practice drawing hands more. And maybe take a class on anatomy. But overall, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. Maybe I’ll do another one soon. Who knows?
