How long should the limbs be?

Long enough that the silhouette reads as a gesture rather than as a body. Two to three times realistic length against a short torso is the usual range.

Why keep the hands small?

Small hands keep the eye on the line of the arm. Large hands at the end of a thin limb pull attention to the extremity and the gesture stops reading.

Does it suit an action character?

Poorly. Thin limbs carry no weight, so an impact has nothing behind it. It is a style for gesture and comedy rather than force.

Noodle Limb

noodle arms
bendy limbs
modern cartoon limbs

Very long thin limbs that bend smoothly but still have a shoulder, an elbow and a wrist.

Draw this style

Opens an image model with the prompt in it. The price is on the page before you sign in.

What it is for

Long limbs give a figure more room to gesture, and a thin limb makes a silhouette that reads instantly at any size. Keeping the joints honest stops it collapsing into period pastiche.

How it works

Limbs are drawn several times longer than realistic and much thinner, curving smoothly along their length. The shoulder, elbow and wrist still exist and still bend where they should. Hands and feet stay small and simple. The torso is short, which exaggerates the limbs further.

When to use it

Use it for gesture, comedy and anything modern. Avoid it when a character needs physical weight, because thin limbs cannot carry any.

Told apart from its neighbours

Rubber Hose has no joints at all and belongs to the 1930s. Bean Construction is about the torso. Big Eye is about the face.

Where it is used

It carries an explainer, a brand character, a web comic and any illustration built around a pose.

Current television animation and web comics
Editorial illustration and brand characters

The prompt

Replace the blanks with your own character, keep the rest. Then run it on an image model.

<character>, noodle limb style, arms and legs drawn very long and very thin and bending in smooth curves, but with a real shoulder, elbow and wrist that still work, hands and feet kept small and simple, the torso short and simple against the length of the limbs, a modern flat colour finish with a thin even outline, a relaxed posture with the limbs hanging in loose arcs

Run it

What goes wrong

A 1930s rubber hose character comes back. Ask for a working elbow and wrist, and for a modern flat finish with a thin even outline.

Leave out

muscle definition, thick limbs, rubber hose tubes with no joints, large hands, a rigid pose

Watch for

Say the joints still work. It is the one thing separating this from rubber hose, and a model reads long bendy limbs as jointless unless told otherwise.

Questions

Rubber hose limbs have no joints and bend anywhere. Noodle limbs are long and thin but still bend at a shoulder, an elbow and a wrist, which reads as current rather than as period.