Cartooning Curriculum and expectations

First Semester:

Each unit consists of at least a week of lessons and practice followed by at least a week for the students to create their own "final piece" in which they demonstrate their mastery at the skills that were demonstrated. 

  Unit #1  Cartoon Faces: Lessons in cartoon and comic book hero style.  Forward, profile and 3/4 face lessons.  Shading and color blending workshop.  Year-long cartooning will receive additional lessons in Manga Style and 3/4 faces.

Unit #2: Body Proportion:  Lessons in a "torso-man", the 8-head tall body, super hero proportions, drawing figures in action, and practice in drawing thumbnail sketches.

Unit #3 Simple landscapes: A short unit on drawing backgrounds without proper perspective.

Action sequence: Students combine the lessons from Units 2 and 3 to create an action sequence with figures with a background. 

Unit #4: Buildings in perspective   Lessons on one and two point perspective, both inside a room and outside.  Year-long Cartooning will receive more lessons and have more time to practice.  Semester long cartooning will create one final piece with either one or two point perspective.  Year-long will create an simple one point perspective in black and white and then create a second final piece of either two or three point perspective with a figure in it.

Unit #5: Lettering: Lessons on different styles of block letters and effects.  Short final piece with a sound effect or large lettering.

 
Unit #6 Creating a unique character:  Students will create a character poster with at least 9 bullet point notes describing the characters personality, physical traits, background story and any associated characters.  The final poster will included at least 3 drawings and lettering.
 
Unit #7 Comic strip:  Lessons on sequencing, pacing, speech bubbles and lay-out.  Students will create a short comic strip in both courses. 

Second Semester for Year-Long Cartooning:

3-D character bust

Caricatures

Political comics
 

Cars and Planes

Flip books

Paper puppets
 
Comic Book covers
 
Charcoals, water colors and other media
 
Using clay for claymation