The look
- A bold ink contour that varies in weight around the form.
- Solid black shadow shapes with crisp edges.
- Flat color fills that occasionally sit slightly off register.
- Halftone dots filling the mid tones and the background.
- A panel border, caption box or sound effect lettering.
Where it comes from
The newspaper strip established the form. Library of Congress material on early comic art dates the first commercially successful American strip to 1895, and Britannica's account describes how word balloons, a continuing cast and regular panels came together shortly after. What reads as comic style follows from how those pages were printed: limited ink colors, halftone dot screens for tone, and heavy black line work that survived rough paper. Tate's entry on comic strip art covers how fine art later took up the same printed vocabulary.
What it suits
- A profile picture with a bold graphic edge
- Panel style portraits for a couple or a group
- Event flyers and posters
- Printed stickers and badges
How to shoot for it
- Use hard light from one side so shadows can become solid black shapes.
- Pick an active expression; the format suits a reaction more than a neutral face.
- Leave space around your head for a caption box or panel border.
- Solid colored clothing prints better than fine patterns under a dot screen.
This look is not in Toonsta today. It is described here so you can recognize it; the closest Toonsta styles are listed below.
Related styles
- Retro cartoon filter: A retro cartoon filter flattens your photo into the look of television animation: a heavy black outline, a small set of flat colors filled inside it, and almost no shading.
- Manga style portrait: A manga style portrait redraws you as a printed comic page rather than a color illustration.
- Pop art portrait: A pop art portrait flattens your face into printed poster color: four or five saturated blocks, a hard black outline, and visible dot texture standing in for skin tone.