My Little Garfield Project
Okay, so the other day, I got this idea stuck in my head. You know Garfield, right? That fat, lazy cat. Well, I specifically got obsessed with his smile. That kinda smug, half-lidded grin he does. Thought to myself, “How hard could it be to capture that?” Famous last words, probably.
So, I decided to give it a shot. Didn’t want anything too complicated. Grabbed my old tablet, the one I mostly use for reading news, and fired up a basic drawing app. Super simple stuff, like the kind that comes pre-installed.
First, I tried just sketching it from memory. Big mistake. What came out looked… well, not like Garfield. More like a vaguely orange blob with a weird line on it. Didn’t have that feel, you know? The eyes were wrong, the mouth curve was off. Everything.
Alright, plan B. I did a quick search on my phone – just looking at images of Garfield smiling. Found a few good ones that really showed that classic look. Okay, references secured. Let’s try this again.
I started over. Focused on the eyes first this time. They’re not fully open, not closed, just lazy slits. Getting that shape took a few tries. Erase, redraw, erase, redraw. Then the muzzle part, that round-ish shape his mouth sits on. Added the nose. So far, so okay.
Now, the tricky part: the smile itself. It’s wide, yeah, but it’s not a happy-go-lucky grin. It’s lazy. Content. A bit sarcastic, maybe? I tried drawing the curve. Too high looked weird. Too flat looked boring. It needed that slight upward flick at the corners. And those little cheek lines!
- Tried making the line thin. Didn’t look right.
- Tried making it thicker. Better, more cartoonish.
- Played with the curve over and over. Felt like ages.
- Added those little lines near the edges of the mouth.
After a bunch of fiddling, erasing bits here and there, tweaking the eye shape just a tiny bit more, it started to look… kinda like him! Added a quick orange fill, some stripes (didn’t spend ages on those, just slapped ’em on). Didn’t bother with fancy shading or anything, just wanted the basic expression.
And yeah, there it was. Not perfect, not professional art or anything, but it had that Garfield vibe. That lazy, “I know something you don’t know” look. Felt pretty good, actually. Just a silly little exercise, but kinda satisfying to finally nail down that specific look I had in my head.
It’s funny how much character can be packed into just a few simple lines. Took longer than I thought it would, but hey, that’s practice for you. Now I kinda wanna try drawing Odie’s dumb, happy face. Maybe next weekend.
