How to Draw Pepe in 10 Easy Steps!
(An Unofficial Guide by James V. Carroll)
James V. Carroll - Pepe is one of the most notoriously difficult Muppets to draw, yet his drawn image is heavily featured on many official products these days such as t-shirts, travel mugs, and comic books. I became aware of the many subtleties of his construction several years ago while working on Palisades Toys’ unreleased tutu clad Pepe action figure. It appears that many of today’s artists have been using the original figure as the maquette instead investigating the beautifully constructed puppet. I have seen various photos and style sheets of the character, but haven’t seen an official guide. There hasn’t yet been a truly definitive representation of everyone’s favorite king prawn.
I recently spent a day doodling to devise an iconic Pepe likeness akin to the famous Kermit head emblem. This 10-step tutorial isn’t perfect. It’s merely one devoted fan’s simplified line art translation of the puppet’s portrait into a character logo. Remember–this is just a guide. Get creative, enjoy, and submit your Pepe art to The Muppet Mindset (ryguy102390@gmail.com) and Ryan will post the results!
(Helpful Tips: A degree of symmetry is employed for this sort of logo, but complete perfection will result in a lifeless prawn so don’t be afraid to go a little off the diagram to tweak things like eye and pupil placement. The antennas are evenly placed on this model in order to contrast the wild, stringy hair feathers. Refrain from being too literal with the hair giving him a thick mop-top. The Muppets have elegant simplicity to the design. Less is always more.)
How incredible is that? The entire Flash setup, the Pepe design, and everything in that tutorial was done by James. I am beyond honored to host this beautiful piece of work and I sincerely hope James has something else up his amazingly talented sleeves for us soon. Oh, and by the way, Muppets Studio folks, if you're reading this... hire James Carroll! Thank you, thank you, James for this awesome, awesome post.
And like James said earlier, do attempt Pepe for yourself and send in your drawings and we'll host them all on here!
We've got another hugely exciting surprise from James coming in tomorrow's post--so be on the lookout for that!
The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier