How to Draw a Cheetah

With its sleek, streamlined body, and long, muscular limbs, the cheetah is built for speed. Capable of running at an incredible 70 mph, the cheetah is faster than the rest of the big cats, or any other land mammal. As you draw, try to bring out the power and grace of this beautiful feline.

 The key to drawing anything is to break it down into basic shapes. If you can draw circles and ovals, you can draw a cheetah.  Don't be discouraged if your first attempt doesn't turn out exactly like the picture. Practice makes perfect, so let's begin!

Click the image below to view the step-by-step cheetah drawing tutorial.

Don’t give up if your first drawings aren’t perfect. Art is not something that can be learned overnight. Drawing is a skill that must be practiced and supplemented through observation, so keep a sketchbook, and take it with you everywhere. Look around you, draw what you see.  Visit the zoo and sketch animals. Sketch people at the mall. The more you draw, the better you’ll get. Good luck!

Daily Animal Sketch – Snow Leopards

Studies of snow leopards and thumbnail compositions for the Snow Leopard Trust illustration.

Daily Animal Sketch – Grizzlies and Polar Bears

Studies of grizzly bears in preparation for the Vital Ground illustration I did last month. Plus, polar bears warm-up gestures.

How to Draw a Polar Bear

Polar bears are large, muscular animals with short legs and powerful forelimbs. The polar bear’s body is streamlined for navigating ice, water, and land. Their elongated torso and tapered head and neck are perfect for long distance swimming, while large feet give them better traction on the ice. Thick fur protects them from the cold. Try to bring out these traits in your drawing.

The key to drawing anything is to break it down into basic shapes. If you can draw circles and ovals, you can draw a polar bear.  Don’t be discouraged if your first attempt doesn’t turn out exactly like the picture. Practice makes perfect, so let’s begin!

Click the image below to view the step-by-step polar bear drawing tutorial.

Don’t give up if your first drawings aren’t perfect. Art is not something that can be learned overnight. Drawing is a skill that must be practiced and supplemented through observation, so keep a sketchbook, and take it with you everywhere. Look around you, draw what you see.  Visit the zoo and sketch animals. Sketch people at the mall. The more you draw, the better you’ll get. Good luck!

Here's another article written by me with more animal sketching tips and resources.

How to Draw an Arctic Fox

Arctic foxes are nimble and curious animals, bursting with energy. They have thick fur to protect them from the cold, which makes them especially puffy and adorable. In the winter, their fur is white to camouflage them in the snow. It thins and turns brown in the summer. For this tutorial, we'll be drawing their winter form.

The key to drawing anything is to break it down into basic shapes. If you can draw circles and ovals, you can draw a fox.  Don't be discouraged if your first attempt doesn't turn out exactly like the picture. Practice makes perfect, so let's begin!

Click the image below to view the step-by-step arctic fox drawing tutorial.

Don’t give up if your first drawings aren’t perfect. Art is not something that can be learned overnight. Drawing is a skill that must be practiced and supplemented through observation, so keep a sketchbook, and take it with you everywhere. Look around you, draw what you see.  Visit the zoo and sketch animals. Sketch people at the mall. The more you draw, the better you’ll get. Good luck!


Here's another article written by me with more animal sketching tips and resources.

Daily Animal Sketch - Grizzly and Polar Bears

Studies of full grown grizzly bears and polar bears (plus one cute polar cub) done throughout December and January.

Comic Page Layout Template

Here is the page layout template (larger version here) I'm using for Last of the Polar Bears. You're welcome to download and print it out for use in your own comics.

The template is sized for printing on standard letter-sized paper. There's a space for you to draw your comic page, a place to keep track of the page number, and a place to indicate starting date. I find marking the date useful for keeping track of my daily page output. The empty space has a purpose as well. This is where you can break down panels, write notes, and try out different ideas for panels configurations, poses, and expressions before you commit to them in the actual layout. See my previous post for examples.

I originally created this layout for use on Peach Fuzz, so the trim and bleed sizes are suited for a standard 5"x7.5" "manga"-sized graphic novel. The black bars on the top and bottom are there as space fillers because the dimensions are intended for penciling on a traditional 11"x17" comic page.

Book sizes vary, as do individual publisher's designated trim and bleeds. For example, I use a different page template for penciling comic pages for Archie Comics. Think about your desired final output size and plan your rough layouts accordingly.

Making a Graphic Novel (Part 1)

My Creative Process

I've finished scanning and compiling the roughs for the first chapter of The Last of the Polar Bears! 67 pages total. The full story consists of seven dense chapters chronicling a polar bear family's journey and struggle to survive in the changing Arctic. I'm working from a detailed 40-page synopsis of the story Jared Hodges and I wrote together. So far the breakdown is working out to about 10 pages of comic pages per 1 page of synopsis, so I estimate that the complete story will end up being around 400-500 pages.

Because I am both the writer and the artist, I decided to bypass the step of writing a traditional script for The Last of the Polar Bears, and work straight from synopsis to rough thumbnail pages. This allows me to be very flexible with my roughs. I read over my synopsis, then visualize the look of the pages as thumbnail drawings while I'm breaking down the actions panel-by-panel. In this way, I can quickly discover whether scenes that are easily described in text work visually, and make necessary corrections.

Here's page 17 and 18 from synopsis to rough thumbnails, in which the twin polar bear cubs Stella and Nanook experience the outside of the den for the first time:

Synopsis:

Stella asks Nanook what's up there. The next panel is his point of view. Endless white snow, and arctic twilight. Frostbite (an arctic fox) is also in the shot, but she is well camouflaged. Her tail is wrapped around her face so that she looks unremarkable, like a lump of snow. "Nothing. Everything's white!" A cold breeze sets his teeth chattering. "It's cold up here!" Shivering, brother cub tumbles back into the den, and falls on top of Stella. Stella protests and goes into battle mode, but he just huddles against her for warmth. It's no fun to play with an unwilling partner, so she gives up and calls him a wimp . She asks him if he saw "it". He shakes his head no. "Just lots of snow."

I breakdown this description into a list of panels, each with a short description of what I want to bring to the attention of the reader. My thumbnail page layout (template here) measures 4"x6" on an 8.5".x11" page and contains pertinent information such as trim and bleed so that I can plan out the overall look of the page along with composition, actions, and word balloon placement.

Sometimes the pages come together in a very straightforward fashion. Sometimes I'll end up trying multiple panel configurations. On page 17, you can see that I've come up with alternate takes for panels 1, 3, and 5.

Once the thumbnails are drawn, I scan them into the computer and assemble the pieces. Here's how 17 and 18 currently look.

These thumbnails are my roadmap for the next step: penciling the pages at full size. With composition and content of the panels figured out, I'll be able to turn my focus to drawing the characters tighter, cleaner, on model, and anatomically correct (to name just a few of many things I'll be keeping in mind as I work through the pages).

I'll continue to delve further into aspects of my comic creation process (with more Last of the Polar Bear sneak peeks!) in upcoming blog posts, so stay tuned for more.

The Last of the Polar Bears - promo poster

This is the promotional poster for The Last of the Polar Bears.

The Last of the Polar Bears is what will hopefully become my next graphic novel. I've spent the last year thinking about it and the last couple months writing and developing the groundwork for it. I just finished plotting out the story in detail from beginning to end, so now I'm ready to move forward with the creation of the comic itself!

This promo illustration, portraying an iconic scene from the first chapter of the story, had a pack a lot of punch with a minimalist execution. With so little detail, it wasn't difficult to draw, but every aspect of it needed to be just right.

I find it very helpful to create a number of tiny thumbnail sketches, to quickly try out different takes on an idea. Working with a general idea of a polar bear cub poking his head out of the den for the first time, finding himself surrounded by an unending sea of white snow, I created a couple of concept sketches:
In these examples, note how composition, placement, and size of the cub play a big role in mood and feel.

#1 is a strong close up on the cub's face, grinning as he takes a peek at the outside world - cute, but completely at odds with the title of the book.

#3 is closer in feel - the landscape is vast, the cub is small--there's a real sense of loneliness going on, but it's so far pulled out from the character that scene no longer feels intimate.

#2 is almost right on target. The cub is cute and awestruck without looking too giddy. But the centered figure is boring and predictable.

#4 takes the aspects of #2 that I liked, but moves the cub into the lower corner. The title is placed in the upper right corner to balance the piece.

Once I had the composition figured out, I set about drawing the character.

He went through several drafts (including some slight variations with him smiling, not shown here) before I finally hit upon a version that worked for the poster.
And here you have it, the finished line art of the cub seen in the poster (flipped in the illustration):

Stay tuned for lots more. I look forward to introducing you to this little guy and the rest of his family. :)

Draw Furries: New Book!

I'm proud to announce the upcoming release of Draw Furries - How to Create Anthropomorphic and Fantasy Animals written and illustrated by me and Jared Hodges, published by Impact Books!



In a nutshell, Draw Furries goes over drawing anthropomorphic and animal characters. It's 128 full-color pages, covering step-by-step anatomy, poses, and species-specific details (wings, tails, eyes...) for feline, canine, equine, rodent and avian characters, plus coloring and backgrounds! The book also includes a bonus guest gallery featuring art by the very talented Bara-chan, Kelly Hamilton, CookingPeach aka Miu, and Makime!

Here's some sample spreads from the book:




The book comes out the beginning of December!

Boy and His Gator WIP 3

Final picture in the series!


Tearfully, the boy returns the baby gator where he found it. Wild things belong in the wild. Aww.

The background lineart is rough because I intend to express the background details during the coloring phase. It's been my experience that lines tend to get in the way when it comes to organic scenery.

The Florida Everglades will be my point of reference for this background. As unlikable as this place can be in the summer (soooo hot outside right now), I'm excited for an opportunity to feature my home state in an illustration. :)

Boy and His Gator WIP 1

Here's the first drawing in a series of three about a boy and his pet gator. Who hasn't wished they could have an alligator for a pet? :)

Incidentally, I was at a park the other day, and had set down my purse for a moment to feed some seeds to a squirrel. When I picked up my purse, I discovered a small stowaway--no, not an alligator, haha--a baby lizard. When I tried to remove him, he scurried onto my hand and up to my shoulder and tilted his head to give me a seemingly quizzical look. I instantly fell in love with the little guy. Of course, I couldn't keep him, but I walked around with him for a bit before depositing him on a bush. He didn't want to leave. Friendliest baby lizard I've ever met. Good luck in your adventures, little lizard! *sniff*

Anyways, back to the drawing, I'm planning on drawing all three one after the other, and then doing the same with the coloring process. If I'm satisfied with the finished picture, the first one might just become the new picture for my next promotional postcard.


Here's a sneak peek at the roughs for the other two:

Gator Studies

When planning out a new illustration, I find that the best place to start is to do some studies of the subjects in your picture. My next picture, actually a series of pictures, is about a boy and his pet gator. So I dug through my photo archive and pulled up a bunch of photos I've taken over the years of full size and baby alligators and did some sketching.

Here's the result:
It occurred to me as I was sketching that I'm no stranger to drawing alligators. The design of the Handra character in my Peach Fuzz books is partially inspired by the shape of an alligator's face. Here's what the Handra look like (sorry, this is the only picture of the Handra I have that's easy to access): You see? Little gator snouts!


I also did some general figure sketches just to keep my people drawing skills up. (Hopefully no one's bothered by some mild nudity here). Here's an excerpt from the exercise: