How To Draw A Cartoon Baby Chick – Tutorial

How to draw a cartoon baby chick GIF

With Easter coming up I thought I’d show you how to draw a cute little baby chick! Just follow the animated GIF above or the easy written instructions below.

When you’re finished, feel free to tweet, pin, email or otherwise share a pic of your cartoon baby chick with me and I’ll post it over at Pinterest! And if you’d like to grab the GIF and/or the tutorial to post on your own blog or website, you’re more than welcome to. (A link back would be appreciated.) Enjoy:

How to draw a cartoon baby chick step-by-step

Easy, right? You should try out my other how-to-draw tutorials too! Here’s just a few:

Feel free to check out my chicken cartoons too!

Easter Cartoons 2013

Easter isn’t far off (it’s really early this year!) so I thought I’d share this a brand new basket of Easter cartoons to help get you in the mood!

Easter Cartoons 1

This year I tended to go a little further afield with my Easter cartoons’ topics, like, for example, chocolate bunnies. I went through a bunch of ideas about eating the ears first and melting and all that, but the whole hollowness aspect won out.

Thanks goodness for Google images for stuff like this. Need a picture of a chocolate Easter bunny? How about a hundred!

Easter Cartoons 2

This is probably my favorite of this year’s Easter cartoons. I did a search for Easter on Pinterest to help kickstart some writing, and you would not believe all the amazing incredible stuff there. I was so bowled over that that became the impetus for this cartoon.

Easter Cartoons 3

That Easter Bunny plays hard ball.

Easter Cartoons 4

This is my wife’s favorite from this batch. When I told it to her originally she literally LOL’d, which was great, but then the pressure was on for the image to match the gag.

I like the kid’s cool nonchalantness. He’s literally a bad boy.

Side note – the kid in the back right used to have a basket with him for collecting his eggs, but then he would’ve had just one basket as well. So my choice was to add one more basket for him, or just take it out in Photoshop, and I chose the latter. Maybe he’s putting them in his pockets? What a weird kid.

Easter Cartoons 5

This Easter cartoon went through a number of different captions:

  • I think we should foster your inner dye.
  • Tell me about your chicken.
  • So, how was your Easter?

I still like that chicken one, but it didn’t really work with the decorating thing. Maybe another time…

Easter Cartoons 6

Drawing a giant anthropomorphic jelly bean is not as easy as you think. It’s got to be the right shape or maybe he’s a balloon, or a Cheeto, or just a blob.

Well, that does it for this year’s batch. Still want more? You can check out all of my Easter cartoons here.

Here’s some additional blogs about Easter cartoons too:

Writing Cartoons – 9 Ideas For Generating Ideas

At the Success in Comics seminar a few weeks back, someone asked me if I considered myself more of an artist or a writer. I answered that I considered myself a writer first and that the art was like the cherry on the sundae. (Or something like that. As I said, it was a few weeks ago.)

With the launch of my cartoon subscriptions recently, I’ve been writing a lot to keep putting out healthy batches of new cartoons each week. And it’s not always easy, but I’ve learned a few tricks over the years to jumpstart my brain a bit and write what I hope are good cartoons consistently:

The Paper –

Writing Cartoons - Paper

While I get almost all of my news either on the radio or online, I still subscribe to the Chicago Tribune. Papers pile up in my office and this stack is usually the first place I go if I’m stuck.

I read pretty much anything, even if it’s not interesting to me, because you never know where you’re going to find that word or turn of phrase that you can play with.

Dictionaries –

Writing Cartoons - Dictionaries

I have a few different dictionaries of phrases and idioms that are great if I need to do a bunch of cartoons on, say, eggs:

  • Walking on eggshells
  • Egg on your face
  • Egg him on
  • Don’t put all your eggs in one basket

See? There’s at least some places to start.

Flipboard & Zite –

Writing Cartoons - Apps

I love my iPad, and Flipboard makes keeping on top of blogs and tweets and all that quick, easy, and beautiful. Zite is a more recent addition and, while it reminds me of Flipboard, it gives me a whole different bunch of interesting content.

LIke the paper, you never know where the treasure is buried, so with either app, it’s good to just read.

Sentence Examples –

Writing Cartoons - Sentence Examples

A more recent find, Sentence Examples is, well, just that. You can either search for a word like “cow”, or you can just browse around to see what strikes your fancy. It’s good for looking at words in context from all sorts of different angles.

Twitter Timeline –

Writing Cartoons - Twitter

I’ve got a lot of followers on Twitter, and I often have Tweetbot up when I’m working. I’d forgotten to close it while writing the other day and glanced up and saw a comment in my timeline that led to a really good cartoon. I tried it again a while later and had another random inspiring moment. I don’t know if this will continue to bear fruit, but right now it’s a great source.

Chon Day –

Writing Cartoons - Chon Day

When I’m really stuck and feeling low I pull out some Chon Day and just marvel at what an amazing cartoonist he was. Sometimes it gets my gears turning, sometimes not, but it’s always inspiring.

Idea Box –

Writing Cartoons - Idea Box

Although it’s been more difficult to keep full recently, I normally write my ideas down on scraps of paper and toss them into what I’ve dubbed my Idea Box. Ideas generally sit in there for a few weeks and then, when I’m ready to draw, I pull a bunch out and see them with fresh eyes. If they’re still good, they get drawn up. If they’re not so good, often I can see where I went wrong or another take on the same idea. And I like the thought of all those ideas sort of marinating together for a while.

Get Up –

Writing is a lot of sitting and staring. A lot of sitting and staring. And for the most part I’ve gotten comfortable with putting in the time. But sometimes when nothing is working I find getting up and doing something else will knock some ideas loose. Do some dishes. Vacuum. Go for a walk. You’ll be surprised at how a little movement will get things moving.

Give Up –

When all else fails, sometimes you just have to put it down and come back another day. It’s hard not to be disappointed or feel defeated, but I try to look at it like I’m priming a pump. And almost always the next day the ideas start flowing again.

So there are some of the techniques I use to keep writing cartoons. Any other suggestions you’d care to share?

Here’s a few more posts on writing cartoons: