With drawing creatures, there are a few different ways to go. You could draw an animal with a human body shape and proportions, or you could give a human simple animal characteristics such as ears and a tail, or you could give an animal the expressiveness or vocal speaking skills similar to a human. You can even mix any of these approaches together. No matter which way you go, they are all valid approaches to drawing a character.
Think about your art style when drawing a character. Is your style cute and round, more cartoonish, or semi-realistic? Consider your art style before drawing.
Anatomy
The foundation of every character is the human body. Therefore, an understanding of human anatomy is important when drawing. There are proportional guidelines all body types have in common that you can use to ensure a well-proportioned drawing.
Head Scale
Artists use the head scale to measure body proportions. The average adult human is about 7 to 7 1/2 heads. Eight heads is the idealized height for adult figures. Children and teens range from 4 to 6 1/2 heads tall. Fashion illustrators use heights of 9 and even 10 heads to create tall, elegant figures.
Supplies
You won’t need a lot to start drawing characters. Just start with whatever you have like pencils and a sketchbook. You can always upgrade to a digital drawing device later. The most important requirements are the enthusiasm to draw and imagination!
Ideas
Start by coming up with an idea before you start to draw. Think about who your character is, what it looks like, what it’s doing, what it’s thinking?
Practice Sketches
The next step is to make thumbnail sketches. These are small practice sketches that are done before a pose is decided on for the final artwork.
Reference Materials
Sometimes it helps to gather some reference materials. For example, some references could be a picture of the animal that is being turned anthropomorphic, pose references from magazines, clothing design references, and even hairstyle references. Reference images can be found online, in books, and sometimes in magazines. Don’t just straight up copy the reference photos that you have gathered. The photos are mainly used to help capture details and get ideas for your drawing, not to directly copy.
Designing your Character
The next step is to actually design the character. You can do some exploratory sketches to help work out the character’s appearance. Try to bring the animal qualities of the character into your design.
Create a Rough Draft
Create a rough draft of your character. You can make a thumbnail sketch using the pose and design from the previous steps. Use this to refer back to as you move forward in the drawing process.
Shapes and Lines
When drawing characters you need to think in shapes. Shapes are the building blocks of art. If you can draw shapes, that is the first step to being able to draw characters. Both two-dimensional (squares, circles, ovals, rectangles), and three-dimensional shapes (cylinders, spheres, cubes) are used when drawing characters.
Build the Form
Reconstruct your thumbnail in full size using basic shapes. In this step you need to focus on getting the body shape and proportions correct. Details and other things can be focused on in a later step.
Sketch the Clothing
Now it is time to sketch the clothing of your character. You need to make sure that the clothing conforms to the character. Whether the character has loose or tight clothing, is all up to you. However, you should add folds where the clothing bunches, or hangs.
Add Details
Now it’s time to have fun with details. You should work your way through the character, adding details from head to toes. Look at your previous sketches of the character for reference, but don’t be afraid to change things around if you want. Be careful with facial features since the face is a focal point.
Complete the Drawing
Take one last look at your drawing to refine, darken or clean up any stray lines or smudges. You can also add any patterns or spots to the character at this step.
Coloring Basics
Color adds dimension to art by further defining the form, establishing the mood, suggesting the setting and time of day. Color can be used to communicate a particular breed or species through the coloration of your creatures coat and fur patterns.
Choose a Color Palette
Do you want your character to have realistic colors based on the animal species or fantastical colors? Select complimentary clothing colors, and add your color legend off to the side for reference. Block in areas on the character with chosen colors. If you’re coloring digitally, it’s okay if your color placement goes outside the lines. It’s easy to clean up.
Determine Lighting
Before you start shading, think about the lighting. Is your character lit by the sun, the moon, an inside light or other lighting? Is there more than one light source? The lighting determines the placement and coloration of your shadows and highlights.
Add Shadows
Select shadow colors that are darker than your base colors. Apply them to areas of the figure not hit by the lighting. This layer creates a sense of depth.
Add Highlights
Select a golden-hued color that is lighter than the base color and use a small brush to add the highlights. Highlights occur wherever the light is most concentrated on your character. Be careful that you don’t cover up your base color. Highlights are just an accent so use them sparingly.
Add Finishing Touches
Blend the colors throughout the character, but don’t obliterate the brushstrokes. To create the look of fur, pull some of the base color into the shadow portions using a small brush. Add a tiny bit of red to fur to give a warm glow. Clean up any colors bleeding outside the edges of the character.
Steps for Drawing the Head of a Dog
Draw a Circle
Start with a circle for any animal head. Your circle doesn’t need to be perfect, but if you don’t want to freehand, use a compass or circle guide.
Draw the Crosshairs
Turn your circle into a three-dimensional sphere by drawing a vertical line neatly dividing the sphere in two, and a horizontal line cutting across it, slightly curving downward with the spherical shape for the character’s eye line. These two lines form the crosshairs, and indicate the center of the face.
Draw the Muzzle and Ears
Sketch the top and front of the muzzle shape from slightly above the eye line, then fill in the sides. It helps to think of the muzzle as a cone shape, extruding from the lower portion of the head. Now sketch the ears along the top of the head facing slightly outward. You can use a ruler or guidelines to align the ears.
Draw the Facial Features
Draw eyes along the horizontal eye line. They should be about an eye-sized space apart from each other. Sketch the brows curving around each eye and down to the muzzle. Sketch the nose to sit between the top and front sides of the muzzle. Fill out the sides of the face with round cheeks and inner ear fluff.
Draw the Face Details
Draw two inward curving lines to form the nostrils. Then draw a softly curving mouth that forms a smile. Draw the circular irises of the eyes, extending past the eyelids. Finally fluff out your creature’s ear and cheek fur.
Refine the Line Work
Darken the brows and fill in the pupils on the eyes. Tighten any lines as needed.
Finish with Color
Use color to add extra dimension to your character’s face. Bring out the fur texture using short and quick strokes.
Study the Features
All animals and creatures have different face shapes. Use your reference materials of your subject to study and adjust the positioning of the eyes, muzzle, cheeks, and ears.
Muzzles
Drawing the muzzle can be challenging. The grid system can be used to make it much easier.
The Grid System
After you have drawn at least one head, you can use grid lines to find the position of facial features from other angles. Facial features remain in the same position on the grid as the angle changes. Start with a basic sphere, then add crosshairs to make a plus sign to indicate the character’s facial features. Add the eyes, sketch the muzzle shape, and draw out the rest of the head. Use the grid to find the correct placement of a canine character’s muzzle from the front, side, and at angles. If you don’t have grid or wide graph paper, you can use a ruler to draw horizontal and vertical lines across facial features. The bottom of the eyes and the top of the nose should sit along the same horizontal line.
Head Angles
Draw the back of the head, three-quarters from the back, top of the head, and a three-quarters down tilt. When drawing the back of the head you can trace the contour lines of the front view and reverse it.
Muzzle Slope
Dog muzzles project straight out or sometimes with a slope. Review your reference material, and make sure you’re looking at the slope of the muzzle.
Practice
Draw a character from the front, then use the grid system to draw the character from several other angles. Try the back view, three-quarters back, and top. Try adjusting the crosshair placement on the sphere to create other angles.
Expressions
There are so many expressions a character is capable of making. The eyes, brows, mouth, and ears can be combined to show complex feelings.
Eyes and Brows
The eyes and brows work together. The spacing between the eyes and the brows can affect the expression. They squeeze tight together in an angry expression. Looking back suggests contemplation, and forward-facing eyes show engagement.
Ears
Ears standing erect make the character appear alert. Ears pointing forward indicate attentiveness. Ears laid back against the head indicate anger or fright. When only one ear turns, the character is listening to sounds from that direction.
Mouth
Drawing the mouth includes the lips, teeth, and jaws. The lower jaw moves, and the upper jaw does not since it is fused to the skull. Upward-curving lips appear friendly. Sharp, threatening fangs portray anger. Lips pursed tightly together show displeasure. A toothy smile can come across as either grinning or scheming.
Cheerful
Alert ears, bright eyes, and a smile show that your character is happy.
Regretful
Pulled-back ears, slightly raised eyebrows, and looking down show that your character is regretful.
Angry
A focused gaze, lips pulled back into a snarl, ears pinched forward, low eyebrows, and flared nostrils shows that your character is angry.
Distressed
The eyes and brows stretched apart creates a look of panic. If a gaping mouth and pulled back ears are connected with the stretched apart eyes and brows, it creates the sense that something is troubling the character.
Forlorn
Partially closed eyes can show a relaxed state, but back-turned ears, upward tilt of the brow, and drooping jaw hint that the character is bothered about something.
Disbelief
Surprise is expressed through a wide-eyed gaze and an open mouth. The slightly uplifted eyebrow and single forward-facing ear hints that the character is finding something difficult to believe.
Practice
Practice drawing these expressions with one of your characters. Or try some others. Look in the mirror and make each expression then transfer the expression onto your character.
Drawing the Body of a Character
Now let’s give our character a body. We’ll start with a basic standing pose in a three-quarters view.
Gesture
Make some gesture sketches of your character in a relaxed and upright stance. Gesture sketches are quick and loose drawings that capture the essence of a pose, like a thumbnail sketch.
Position
Using your gesture sketch as a guide, draw a line to establish the flow of action through the pose. Sketch the basic shape of the head and torso along the path of the line.
Build up the Shapes
When you sketch the arms, keep in mind that the elbows should align with the waistline and the wrists should align with the groin. Sketch the legs following the line of action. Build out the shape of the head using the crosshair guides. Sketch your character’s tail starting from the base of their spine, curving based on the species of your character.
Define the Figure
Use a combination of curved and strong angular lines to bring out the form of the character. Brisk, angular lines will emphasize fur on the head, neck, shoulders, elbows, tail, and legs. You can bring out the animal qualities of your character by giving paw pads on their hands and feet. Fill in the face details. Erase the guidelines and refine lines as needed.
Add Color
It’s time to add colors to bring dimension and texture to your character. The colors can be realistic or not.
Silhouette Check
You can check how readable a pose is by filling it in with black. If it’s easy to tell what’s going on from the all black silhouette, then you’re good. If the silhouette becomes more of a blob, look for ways to separate body parts in the pose.
Anatomy
The anatomical structure of a character is realistic in that the body is built similar to a human’s with the exclusion of the skull, pelvis, hands and feet. A good understanding of anatomy will show in your artwork.
Bones
Double-check your drawings by sketching a simplified skeleton over your figure in a new layer if digitally, or with tracing paper if drawn traditionally. Use landmarks such as the elbows, knees, ribcage, collarbone, heels, and muzzle to properly position the skeleton sketch. Adjust or re-draw if necessary.
Turnarounds
A turnaround shows how a character looks from different angles. It usually includes a front view, back view, side view, and three-quarters view. Animators and comic artists use turnarounds to establish character designs for reference to ensure consistency in their drawings. Get into the habit of creating a turnaround chart for each of your characters, especially if you’re planning on drawing the character more than once. Use horizontal guidelines to line up features of the body from multiple angles, as long as the character’s position remains the same features should always line up, regardless the direction the character is turning. Establish overall height using the ear tips, feet, and head. Sketch to the side how many heads tall the character roughly is. Use other figure landmarks to keep the character in line at the eyes, shoulders, belly button, knees, and heels.
Body Language
You can portray a character’s mood and demeanor through their pose. This includes posture, gesture, facial expression, and placement of hands and tail.
Confidence
If a character has an open stance, a raised head, an upright posture, and an upward curving tail, that signals that the character is confident as well as in control.
Depressed
If a character has their head bowed, slumped shoulders and back, and arms that are hanging loose, that signals that the character is depressed or drained of energy.
Happy
Everything in the pose has an upward pull. Raised arms, an upward curving tail, and an arched back show that the character is happy.
Authoritative
A dramatic gesture and an open-mouthed expression suggests that your character is speaking for an audience. Narrow eyebrows and back-turned ears could suggest that the character is speaking about a serious topic. The body twisting to a direction, and an arm pulling to the direction opposite of the body twist could create tension.
Scolding
When a character is scolding, they usually lean inward. The character’s tension goes from their tail up to their glaring eyes and accusatory finger, if they are pointing with a finger.
Scared
A scared pose shows that the character is intimidated or frightened of something. The character could hold their arms out in front of them to try to protect themselves, and lean back to distance themselves from whatever is intimidating or scaring them. A puffed and downward curving tail and back-turned ears suggests that the character is scared.
Ashamed
When a character is ashamed, they have their extremities pulled towards the center. The character would try to avoid eye contact, one hand would be grasping the other arm, and their tail tucked away clearly to show their discomfort.
Aggressive
When a character is aggressive they could be leaning forward, displaying dominance. Bared teeth and grasping clawed hands show the character is ready for a fight.
Body Language
Observe people and try to draw the poses and gestures that they do for more examples of body language. Also observe the body language of animals.
Posture and Balance
Account for the center of gravity to avoid characters looking off-balance. If standing, the center of gravity is usually the chest, but it changes based on where the majority of the weight is concentrated to when a character leans, crouches, or bends over.
Counter Weight
When kneeling, the weight is distributed to both feet, making the shoulders and hips parallel. The tail provides additional stability.
Equal Weight
When standing, the center of gravity goes straight down the middle in equal amounts to each leg. The hips and shoulders are parallel similar to when a character is kneeling.
Balancing
In a leaning figure, the center of gravity shifts away from the center of the chest. Poses in this category are tricky.
Good Posture
In a side view, the center of gravity is in the middle of the chest, that aligns with the weight-bearing feet.
Weight on One Leg
The center of gravity alights with the foot that is forward. The bust line also matches with the tilt of the shoulders.
Leg Configurations
When drawing characters, there are 3 different types of gaits. You’re already familiar with plantigrades, animals that walk on the soles of their feet, like us. There are also digitigrades and unguiligrades. There are several ways to approach each leg configuration.
Digitigrade
Digitigrades are animals that walk on their toes, such as dogs, cats, birds, and some dinosaurs. The center of gravity aligns with the toes, when a digitigrade is standing.
Plantigrade
Plantigrades walk on the soles of their feet, like we do. Their center of gravity is the middle of the feet, unless they are standing on tip-toes, or balancing on the heel.
Unguligrade
Unguligrades walk on hooves, and the heel doesn’t touch the ground. Examples of unguligrades are horses, deer, cows, and pigs. In unguligrades, the center of gravity aligns with the hooves.
Backwards knees?
Forget the old myth that says animals have backwards knees, it’s completely false! The myth came about due to a misunderstanding of animal anatomy. In animals, what looks like a backwards knee, is ACTUALLY the heel of the animal!
Dynamic Poses
Once you’re comfortable with the anatomy, proportion, body language, and balance, you’re ready to add dynamic poses into your artwork. Dynamic poses are more challenging.
Outside the Center of Gravity
Motion adds a dynamic feeling to a pose. To properly show walking or running, the character should be drawn off-balance by the center of gravity being placed in a position where it is NOT supported. This is because of the fact that when someone is running, they are in a controlled fall, but they are constantly catching themselves with the other foot, over and over again.
Line of Action
The line of action establishes the primary direction flow. It generally takes the form of either a curving c or a subtle s, and follows the character’s spine.
Overlap
Overlapping is where things are covered by other things in artwork, and in reality. For example when a character is curled up for a dive, their legs and arms might overlap and obscure parts of their torso.
With a Twist
Drawing a character with a torso that twists is a good way to make a pose dynamic. The hips pulling away from the upper torso suggests motion.
Thinking Inside the Box
Draw your characters as if they were standing in a 3-dimensional space by lightly drawing a 3-dimensional box, and sketch the character inside the box.
Foreshortening
Foreshortening is where something looks smaller as it goes off into the distance. It also helps give depth, and helps the character almost “pop out” to the viewer. A lightly sketched exaggerated box shape around the subject can help if you are attempting to draw them using foreshortening.
Body Shapes
Characters come in all shapes and sizes. They can be fat, skinny, tall, short, muscular, lean, and everywhere in-between. Don’t limit your artwork by using a single body type. A character’s body shape can hint at their age, personality, and level of fitness.