How to draw a Fedora Hat

Drawing Hats

I am experimenting with a feature where I draw hats of various kinds on the screen. My first experimentation is probably going to be the drawing of a cowboy hat (stay tuned). I am certainly not an artist although I did do a course on watercolours a couple of years ago. Well time for a Google search to see if I can get help from some real artists …..

I found a very interesting blog post about how to draw a Fedora Hat – particularly the kind of Fedora that was popular in the 1930s and 40s (as worn by Nick Charles in The Thin Man for example). You can find the post here on the blog Cartoon Snap by Sherm Cohen. Sherm is a Cartoonist who is resident in Los Angeles and has worked on the Ren and Stimpy Show ,  SpongeBobSquarePants , Phineas and Ferband other projects. According to Sherm’s bio he is currently working as Director and Storyboard Supervisor on Kick Buttowski, a forthcoming series for Disney TV Animation. His newest book, Cartooning: Character Design is published by Walter Foster Publications.

Sherm found 2 vintage references on drawing fedoras ( a task he has to do on a regular basis apparently) and these references are scanned and reproduced for our personal use. There were some great tips there. Here are some of the tips:

• Draw the Hat as if it fits over the skull not the hair remembering that the hat does not touch the skull in some parts of many designs.
• The taper of the Crown needs particular attention as a design feature.
• The hat should not be shown high on the head but almost touching one of the eyebrows (in measuring the circumference of the head for a hat one needs to remember this fact)

Please check out the post and Sherm’s blog.

Sherm also cites the Fedora Lounge on how various creases are put into the hats to change the style. One must pay a lot of attention to these style features when drawing hats – they change everything.

Please let me know if you find other references on drawing hats. I’m still looking. I think cartooning hats places some discipline on one since it forces an attention to the key design features.

Tagged as: Cartoon, Fedora, Sherm Cohen