Silhouettes

A memorable cartoon character can be reduced to a silhouette and still be immediately recognizable.  When you're designing a character, pay attention to the form...think about positive and negative space, contrasting shapes, and how it will translate to a silhouette.  Below is a group of 35 popular cartoon characters reduced to just their silhouettes.  No details, linework, or colors, yet you can identify all of them.

Thanks to Bob Flynn for the above image.

More examples of characters with iconic silhouettes from children's books.

 

Nico Marlet drew these Po silhouettes, by playing the black and white against each other.

  

By drawing just the silhouette is forces the artist to avoid unnecessary details and focus only on the big important shapes that define the character.

Some good blog posts on the subject:

http://fablefolk.blogspot.com/2008/04/cartoon-silhouettes.html

http://blog.aviary.com/good-design-lies-in-the-foundation/

http://characterdesignnotes.blogspot.com/2011/03/use-of-silhouettes-in-concept-design.html