Looking for funny things to draw? Here are 60, and none of them need drawing skill to land. A wobbly line often makes a joke better. What a funny drawing needs is a clear idea: something ordinary put in the wrong place, at the wrong size or with the wrong attitude.
Pick one, keep it simple and stop as soon as the joke reads.
- A sloth running late for a meeting it scheduled
- A cat giving a slideshow about knocking cups off tables
- An octopus at a shoe shop buying eight left shoes
- A bear folded into a hammock like a taco
- A pigeon in a tiny business suit eating a dropped pretzel
- A dinosaur with short arms attempting to clap
- A goldfish in therapy, discussing the glass
- A dog wearing a vet cone as a proud fashion statement
- A flamingo that tips over the moment it falls asleep
- A mole wearing three pairs of glasses at once
- A turtle on a skateboard overtaking a snail on a scooter
- A giraffe ducking under a doorway and still hitting its head
- A nervous egg watching a frying pan heat up
- A loaf of bread at the beach getting toasted
- A phone at one percent battery writing its will
- A sock telling a dryer where the other one went
- A pencil sharpener after a very large lunch
- An ice cube sweating in a sauna
- A grape looking in a mirror and seeing a raisin
- An alarm clock that has overslept
- A teabag relaxing in a mug like a hot tub
- A chair, tired of being sat on, sitting on another chair
- A banana slipping on a tiny human shoe
- A pair of scissors telling a child not to run
- A wizard who turned his own hands into spoons
- A pirate with two eye patches asking for directions
- A ghost losing a fight with a fitted sheet
- A knight in full armor stuck to a giant magnet
- A snowman at the gym lifting two carrots
- An astronaut whose helmet is full of popcorn
- A vampire at the orthodontist getting braces
- A mummy caught in an elevator door, unraveling
- A superhero ironing a cape with tiny careful strokes
- A dragon blowing out birthday candles and the cake with them
- A robot butler serving a plate of bolts with a flower garnish
- A stern king wearing bunny slippers under his robe
Not jokes exactly. Just wrong in a way that makes people look twice.
- A fish with human legs waiting for a bus
- A cottage on chicken legs crossing a road
- A man whose head is a fishbowl, fish included
- A tree that grows gloves in place of leaves
- A moon with a zipper, half undone
- A cloud on a leash being walked like a dog
- A teacup with a whole ocean storm inside
- A hand where each finger wears a different tiny hat
- A cow whose spots are maps of small islands
- A banana that peels open to reveal a telephone
- A snail with a skyscraper for a shell
- A candle whose flame is a tiny dancing person
Draw the picture, then letter the line underneath.
- Two snowmen in a field: 'Do you smell carrots?'
- A cat lying across a keyboard: 'I'm helping.'
- A dog beside an empty bowl: 'It has been ten whole minutes.'
- A drooping plant by the window: 'I mentioned I was thirsty on Tuesday.'
- A skeleton at a cafe counter: 'A water and a mop, please.'
- Two socks in a drawer: 'We used to be three pairs.'
- A fish in a plastic bag: 'Are we there yet?'
- A raincloud above a picnic: 'Surprise.'
- A snail talking to a tortoise: 'Slow down, show-off.'
- A battery lying on its side: 'I'm drained.'
- A dusty library book: 'Nobody ever checks me out.'
- A moth in a lamp shop: 'I'll take all of them.'
Most visual jokes use one of four moves, and you can apply them to anything:
- Swap the role. Give an animal or an object a human job, worry or hobby.
- Break the scale. Make the small thing huge or the huge thing tiny.
- Play it straight. Draw the ridiculous thing with a completely serious face. Calm characters are funnier than ones who know they're in a joke.
- Show the second after. The moment just after things go wrong is usually funnier than the moment itself.
Try a four-panel page. Pick one idea, draw it in the first box, then use the next three boxes to make the situation worse each time. The sloth is late, then later, then the meeting has ended, then it arrives to an empty room and sits down anyway. You'll learn pacing, and you'll have a comic at the end.
A funny drawing is often the start of a character people remember. If the wizard with spoon hands deserves a backstory, type him into the Character Creator and see what comes back. The OC Generator will happily write a serious biography for a ridiculous idea.
More to draw: random things to draw, things to draw when bored and cute things to draw.
Objects with faces and feelings are the easiest: a nervous egg, a sweating ice cube, an alarm clock that overslept. One simple shape plus an expression is enough.
Take something normal and change one thing: its job, its size or its mood. A pigeon is normal. A pigeon in a business suit is a joke.
Combine two things that share a shape. A snail shell becomes a skyscraper, a moon gets a zipper, a fishbowl becomes a head. The closer the shapes match, the stranger it feels.
No. Clear matters more than polished. If someone can tell what it is and what went wrong in two seconds, the drawing works.
