Etherington Brothers, “How to THINK When You Draw” — 300+ free tutorials,
including “How to draw CHARACTERS (3-Shapes)” and “(Flipped-Shapes).” The richest free
cartoonist library on the web, made by two working comic artists (Robin & Lorenzo Etherington,
The Phoenix comic).
Toniko Pantoja (YouTube) — story/animation artist (How to Train Your
Dragon 3, Trolls, Croods 2); excellent free videos on appealing shape language.
Sycra (YouTube) — “iterative drawing” and shape-design; great for
developing your own voice through variation rather than copying.
Study your north stars directly. Copy frames from Adventure Time,
Invader Zim, and similar cartoons. Break each character into its underlying simple shapes —
Finn is a rounded box, Jake is a fluid blob.
A real, repeatable design drill — not a one-off
The Etherington Brothers’ 3-Shape Characters
method is built to be run over and over, not done once: split a body into three sections, then
randomly pick each section’s height (short/medium/tall) and width (narrow/medium/wide). Every
combination produces a different, usable silhouette. Run it weekly with a fresh random combination
— it’s how the Etheringtons themselves teach building a personal library of shapes fast.
exercises
Run the 3-Shape drill weekly, then draw an expression sheet (and eventually a full turnaround model
sheet) for whichever result you liked best that week — exactly where your Phase 1–2 construction
work pays off.