2026 Sketchbook #006 – Smiling Friends

This is one of the two sketchbook posts I am going to be doing this week and it features fan art of characters from a favorite cartoon of mine, Smiling Friends. Plus, the composition of the art gave me an idea for a dumb little gag to photobash together, so let’s go.

I adore Smiling Friends and it is one of the best shows to come out of Adult Swim for a long time now. It’s a great absurd cartoon with a mishmash of visual styles. There is some fun animation and it ranges from the hilariously simplistic to the very complicated – but it all works really well together.

As for the main reason I like the show, it’s the dialogue. I am more of a writer than an artist, so I just love hearing character lines and conversations because they feel so real. My favorite episode is still the one where they go to Brazil and are stuck in the airport, trying to figure out what to do. The dialogue is just so natural and can feel heavily improvised. You get these moments of absurdity in an episode, juxtaposed with statements that sound like something I’ve heard out of my friend circles.

Smiling Friends is real good stuff. My favorite character is Alan, the red guy.

Smiling Fight 64

Anyway, as I had mentioned at the top of the sketchbook post, the drawing composition I went with for this Smiling Friends art reminded me of game box art. Something like a mascot fighter like Super Smash Bros.

So… that is what I decided to run with as a little photobash element. Pretty basic but has that late 1980s licensed game feel to it. A horribly misguided licensed game. You know that without the M-rating it’s not going to be as good.

Anyway, some credit: The Smiling Fight 64 logo is a bash of the official Smiling Friends logo, and the font HVD Steinzeit. Additionally, I used two box art sources. The first was located here, while the second was located here.

Anyway, with that gag done, here is the full art you’re looking for.