Cartoon Faces, as the names suggests, is all about the drawing of humorous faces. It is rich in detail with clear instructions that will bring hours of drawing pleasure and a marked improvement in drawing skills for those new to cartooning.
Useable by about grade 4 and up, it is really for the serious student cartoonist seeking detailed information about taking their drawing to the next level and designing their own cartoon characters. Beginners would likely to be just as happy with Modern Cartooning. Reading level and the jokes suggest an audience of junior high level and up. That said the young beginner will find over 25 step-by-step cartoons in Cartoon Faces that are bound to improve their drawing skills. More advance cartoonist will find detailed instructions and numerous suggestions which are super useful in that it is often the small details that lifts a drawing out of the ordinary.
Chris starts with the cartoon head basics. This is followed by detailed instructions on: drawing each part of face, a close look at head shapes, exaggeration, face dynamics, hairstyles, the use of shading and highlights, and additional drawing exercises. The book is heavy on well illustrated instructional pictures and these are then put to use in carefully thought out, clear step-by-step cartoons of a wide variety of characters. Chris's approach is to develop the individual character to showcase the idea or expression. For example how do you show goofy as opposed to sleepy. I found the chapter on hairstyles particularly useful.
This is the not the sort of book that gets regulated to the book shelf instead you will find yourself constantly referring back to it while drawing your own characters.
There are two areas that Chris does not cover; villains and how to adapt a large number of facial expressions to the same character.
One interesting feature is a character finder consisting small pictures of each face and page numbers for more than 80 different faces. This index of pictures would be a useful feature in any art book.
As I have stated in other reviews of Chris Hart books, one of Chris's real strengths is the tie in of his books with Chris's YouTube channel. Both the channel and books reinforce each other as Chris demonstrates his drawing techniques in his YouTube videos. Unlike many drawing videos Chris goes through the entire process demonstrating the step-by-step process including all the erasing and changes needed to complete the drawing. This is combined with a running, often humorous, monologue as Chris explains both the what and the why of his drawing decisions. This modeling of technique can only benefit the student cartoonist as they can watch each video as often as they wish. Best yet there is a constantly supply of new videos. The channel is kid friendly.
So Cartoon Faces is highly recommend. I know my copy is getting a workout as I teach kids cartooning and work on my own cartoon projects.
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