How to Draw Animals
If you want to know how to draw animals, you may want to know how to draw them in general or how to draw a particular animal. If you need to draw an animal for a theater set, poster, or other one time need, it’s easy to learn how to draw just the one animal by following a tutorial. If you want to learn to draw many animals because you want to widen your artistic skills, there are general techniques you can learn.
Here are a bunch of books that will show you how to draw all sorts of animals from lions, tigers, and bears, to birds and reptiles. Practicing with step by step instructions and tutorials will help you to develop your overall drawing skills, too.
Start with a Model
Find a picture of the animal you want to draw. You can turn any picture into a cartoon-style animal by making the drawing more simplistic and cute, or you can draw a real life sketch. You can find a picture of any animal you want on the internet.
Have the Right Tools
Technically, all you need is a pencil and paper. However, you will get better results from using quality paper or a sketchbook and using a variety of pencils, both hard and soft. Of course, if you want, you can start with a simple number two pencil. Using a variety of hard and soft pencils will allow you to get simple shading effects of other sketching techniques done right.
Choose your Method
You can draw freehand or try a grid method. With the grid method, print out the picture and draw a grid on it with even squares. Scale the squares up or down, depending on how large you want your drawing, and draw the same amount on a piece of paper. Then, take each square bit by bit and draw exactly what you see. Make the lines of the grid very light so that you can erase them as you go.
You can also draw freehand. Sketch out the main outline of the animal and then work in the features such as the facial features and limbs. Build onto what you have to bring in more intricate features. Before you know it, your animals will come out faster and better looking. Practice drawing often and your work will get much better.
