15 Types of Cartoon Drawing Styles with Examples

The perfect, if not the best, place to begin cartoon drawing style as an artist is drawings or sketches, since you don't need a lot of drawing equipment to start this type of drawing. What you chiefly need is just your pen and paper to begin.

So, let's move ahead as this content will show you different cartoon drawing styles, and in no time, you'll master the art.

Part 1 Types of Cartoons You May Use for Your Next Marketing Project

As I've mentioned before, there are various types and styles of cartoon drawings. Below are a few cartoon drawing styles you may want to use for your next project.

01Modern Cartoon Style

This style is currently the most common art style displayed on TV channels like Cartoon Network.

Note that this cartoon-style drawing's main features are the thick outlines, geometric shapes, and bright colors.

One of the significant reasons this drawing style is this way is that using simple shapes without much detail makes the overall animation process much faster and saves resources for the studios. Nonetheless, it is a beautiful and captivating cartoon drawing style!

This drawing style is used by many modern cartoons. Here are a few examples:

● The Powerpuff Girls

● Dexter's Laboratory

● Codename: Kids Next Door

● Gravity Falls

02Realistic Cartoon Style

This cartoon drawing style is more quirky since, generally, cartoon drawing is more likely to simplify shapes. The realistic cartoon-style drawing adds more details and keeps figures much more in line with reality. This drawing style is typical among artists who vectorize people's photographs.

You can also, to some extent, include Caricatures in this category. Caricatures are generally very realistic besides the whole enlargement and shrinking of specific body parts!

Few examples of realistic cartoon drawing styles:

● Ugly Americans

● General Caricataures

● Archer

03Modern Anime

This style tends to be more complex, primarily seen in drawings where the characters seem to be in motion, like in comic books. Modern-day drawings of this style have a lot of shadows and highlights in their character and environment, giving them a relatively new level of complexity.

Here are a few examples of modern animes that follow this Japanese cartoon drawing style.

● My Hero Academia

● Sword Art Online

● Attack on Titan

● Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood

04Classic Manga

The old Japanese manga characters tend to possess human-like attributes (proportions) in terms of the body. The difference is the big eyes they have the most time.

Generally, this cartoon drawing style focuses more on feminine bodies, possessing angular chins and thin bodies. Some drawing styles tend to make some parts of the body overtly long compared to the rest of the body; for instance, the legs are mostly longer than other parts.

A few examples of classic manga possessing this cartoon style drawing are:

● Oh My Goddess

● Urusei Yatsura

● Sailor Moon

● Hellsing

05Chibi Drawing Style

The Chibi Cartoon Drawing Style mainly focuses on making the characters into a tiny version of themselves as if being compressed or compacted into a small container.

Examples of where this drawing style is used:

● Lucky Star

● Bottle Fairy

● Himouto! Umaru-chan

06The Simpsons Cartoon Drawing Style

This cartoon-style drawing is widely famous. Though this style has undergone some evolution throughout the years, the main features remained constant! That is to say, the yellow bodies and big and white sphere-like eyes remained.

07Classic Disney

This drawing style was a staple for years, though this drawing style has had an evolutionary cartoon drawing style over the years.

08Mid 20th Century Disney

Disney upped their game during the mid 20th century and started working more with live actors, drawing from references, and filming shots before drawing the cartoons.

Some remarkable examples of this cartoon drawing style are

● Alice in Wonderland

● Cinderella

● Beauty and the Beast

09Modern Disney Drawing Style

This cartoon-style drawing is an immediate improvement of the mid-20th 20th drawing style. This cartoon style is brighter, more detailed, and more complex generally.

Although Disney has stopped creating 2D cartoon drawings, there are still some examples of this more refined art style:

● The Princess and the Frog

● Lilo and Stitch

10Old Cartoon Drawing Style

This drawing style is mostly in black and white format, with very high contrast body parts. The features of this style are having short bodies and long limbs. Sometimes, this type of drawing is referred to as Noodle drawing because the character's body moves as if there are no bones in their body.

Some examples of this cartoon drawing style include:

● Mickey Mouse

● Betty Boop

11South Park

South Park cartoon drawing style is aptly geometric and has little depth. Shadows or highlights in this cartoon-style are rare. The colors are pretty solid and clean.

12Chrono Trigger/ Dragon Ball (Akira Toriyama)

Akira Toriyama's cartoon drawing style characterizes having big and almost rectangular eyes and a lot of geometric shapes and definitions in the muscles.

13Crayon Shin-Chan

This cartoon-style drawing is effortless. An exciting aspect of this style is that it doesn't mind pushing the limits of the character.

The lines generally are thin, and the eyes are prominent in black and white colors.

14Betty Boop

Betty Boop's cartoon drawing style possesses contrasting black and white colors. Fragile lines with the characters contain a very high amount of black shapes.

15Adventure Time

Adventure Time's art is incredibly geometric, and its characters are nearly boneless, making it a more current example of a cartoon drawing style.

More fluid animation is possible as a result of this. The art is also quite brilliant, with vibrant hues that leap off the screen.

Aside from that, the characters' eyes are usually tiny (with a few exceptions), and the lines are skinny.

Part 2 How To Draw Myself In Five Different Cartoon Styles

As you’ve seen in the previous section, there are many cartoon art styles to choose from when trying to draw yourself. To sketch yourself as a cartoon, first, you must determine what cartoon drawing style to use. This will give you hints on how to go about the drawing.

●The traditional method of pen, pencil, and paper. First is to draw yourself, if you have the skills and time.

●Hire or outsource the design from an illustrator, freelancer, or studio. If not, one option is to hire an artist or illustrator to draw you in a specific cartoon art style, like anime, Disney/Pixar, or classic comic book.

While these methods give you full control, they can be time-consuming and expensive. Many people now prefer a faster option: converting their photos into cartoon styles using AI tools. It’s simple, affordable, and only takes a few clicks.

Part 3  How To Cartoonize Yourself without Drawing?

While drawing is preferable when making art, not everyone knows how to turn a photo into a cartoon manually through drawings, nor does everyone have the money to spend on hiring an illustrator. The good news is that you don’t need any drawing skills or spend much time. With easy-to-use tools like Wondershare Filmora Video Editor, you can automatically turn your photos or videos into cartoons, or make your animation or cartoon-style drawing more vibrant; no manual drawing is required!

Cartoonize Yourself With Filmora on Desktop

If you're working on a computer, the desktop version of Filmora gives you full access to advanced AI tools and creative templates. It's great for creating animated versions of your photo or generating unique cartoon characters from scratch.

• AI image stylizer: Instantly converts your photo into a stylized cartoon photo with AI. There are 180+ templates offered.

• AI image-to-video tool: Instantly converts your photo into a stylized cartoon video with AI. Great for anime or Studio Ghibli-style results. It offers a wide range of video inspirations to choose from as well.

• AI image generator: Type in a prompt, and Filmora creates cartoon-style images from scratch—no photo needed. Perfect for original characters or settings.
• Rich template library: Access ready-made templates to apply animation effects or turn still images into animated scenes in minutes.

Cartoonize on the Go With Filmora Mobile

Prefer using your phone? Filmora’s mobile app has powerful built-in cartoon filters. It’s ideal for quick edits, fun selfies, or giving your short videos a hand-drawn look. These are perfect for social media posts. With Filmora mobile, you can enjoy the following AI tools to create cartoon-style drawings:

• AI image-to-video: The same AI image-to-video is ported with the same powers, templates, and capabilities to Filmora’s mobile version. Enjoy desktop-class cartoon-style and video conversion right on your phone.

Extra Features Worth Noting

Besides cartooning, Filmora also lets you:

• Generate animated videos from your edits using text prompts (AI text-to-video).
• Create AI music that matches your cartoon-style videos beautifully.
• Add animated stickers and overlays to give your videos a playful, cartoon-like feel.

You don’t need to be an artist. With Filmora, cartoon-style art is now just a few clicks away!

Ending Thoughts

Cartoon-style drawings come in many forms, each with its own personality. When learning how to turn your picture into a cartoon, choose one style that resonates the best with you. This way, you can express yourself better. Also, don’t be afraid to experiment and mix and match the different styles to create your own.

And if drawing isn’t your thing, tools like Filmora make it easy to cartoonize yourself with zero effort. From AI-powered filters to cartoon-style video templates, you can turn photos and clips into creative visuals in minutes.