What Are Easy Proportions For A Doraemon Cartoon Drawing?

If I'm giving fast, friendly advice to someone just starting, I tell them to think in big shapes: circle for the head, slightly smaller circle for the body, and tiny ovals for hands and feet. Make the head your measuring stick. Eyes should be about one-quarter the head width and placed close together near the upper-middle of the head circle. A small round nose sits right between the eyes, and the mouth is a wide, low arc that stretches nearly to the sides of the face circle. Whiskers are simple straight lines — three per side — tilted a little bit outward.

A quick cheat-sheet I love: head = 1 unit, body = 0.9 units, eye = 0.25 units, nose = 0.18 units, bell = 0.2 units, pocket width = ~0.45 body units, legs about 0.4 units tall. Blocking those proportions first makes refining super easy. For expression variety, move the eye line up or down a hair, tweak the mouth curve, or exaggerate the head-to-body ratio (bigger head = cuter). I always finish by erasing the construction lines and darkening the contours that tell the silhouette — simple steps but they make the drawing pop. I still get a kick watching a rough circle transform into that familiar, cheerful face.

Sketching Doraemon with simple proportions is one of my favorite quick exercises — it feels like instant happiness. I usually start by deciding a head size and treating it as my unit. Make the head a perfect circle and call that 1 unit in diameter. the body should be almost the same size but slightly smaller: about 0.85–0.95 units. That near-head-size body is what gives Doraemon his chunky, cuddly look. For a reliable guide: head = 1 unit, body = 0.9 units, total height about 1.6–1.8 units because the head sits directly on the body with only a tiny neck gap.

When I block in features I use simple fractions of the head. Eyes: each eye is roughly 1/4 of the head width, placed very close together with a gap about half an eye width. Put the eye line a little above the exact center — about 0.1–0.15 head units above the horizontal center — so the forehead reads roomy and cute. The red nose is a small circle centered between the eyes, about 0.16–0.2 of head diameter. The mouth is a wide curve that stretches nearly the width of the body circle; place it a bit lower than the nose so the cheeks feel round. Whiskers are three straight lines on each side, equally spaced and starting near the cheek edge.

Limbs are tiny stubs: arms are short cylinders about 0.5–0.7 head units long with mitten-like hands, and legs are little cylinders 0.35–0.45 head units ending in oval feet. Collar width sits right at the junction of head and body; make the bell a circle about 0.18–0.22 head units and hang it from a short rectangle. The pocket is a semicircle centered on the lower body about 0.4–0.5 head units wide. If you want a foolproof approach, sketch all those basic shapes with light lines first — circle for head, slightly smaller circle for body, then map eye and mouth distances with cross guides. I love how forgiving these proportions are: tweak them to push cuteness or expressiveness, and it still reads as Doraemon — every sketch makes me grin more than the last.

I tend to think in forms and rhythms when I draw, so I break Doraemon down into a few geometric relationships. Treat the head and torso as overlapping circles — the head being the primary reference — then measure everything off that central circle. If you pick the head diameter as 100 units, let the body be 85–95 units; eyes become roughly 25 units wide each with a spacing of 10–15 units. That kind of numeric shorthand helps when I want consistent characters across panels or practice perspective.

Beyond the numbers, proportions depend on the vibe. For a classic, front-facing Doraemon, keep the face centered, eyes almost touching, nose dead-center, and the mouth curve broad and low. If I want a dynamic three-quarter pose I shorten the visible eye slightly and shift the nose toward the foreshortened side; maintaining the relative sizes (eyes ~1/4 head, nose ~1/6 head) keeps him recognizable. Also, small features like the bell and pocket are useful anchors: bell about 20–25% of head width, pocket roughly 40–50% of the body width — they break up the silhouette and give the eye places to land.

Practical tips I use: always draw a vertical center line and an eye-level line first, because symmetry is huge for this character. Use light construction circles for the limbs, then refine them into simple cylinders and rounded mittens. When shading or coloring, remember Doraemon’s blue is flat and bold; keeping highlights simple preserves that toy-like charm. I enjoy pushing these proportions slightly — bigger head, smaller legs — when I want extra cuteness, and dialing them back for a more comic-strip look. It’s a fun balancing act that keeps my sketchbooks lively.