{"title":"How to Draw a Dolphin - Easy Cartoon Dolphin for Kids","canonicalUrl":"https://www.craftingstepbystep.com/drawing/how-to-draw-a-dolphin","category":{"slug":"drawing","name":"Drawing"},"creator":{"name":"Art for Kids Hub","channelUrl":"https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5XMF3Inoi8R9nSI8ChOsdQ","sourceVideoUrl":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou7NitF6gkU"},"tldr":"Learn how to draw a dolphin in 10 easy steps. Start with a big cartoon eye, add the forehead, flippers, tail and fin, then color it aqua.","quickAnswer":"Learn how to draw a dolphin in 10 easy steps. An easy project: about 20 minutes. You need 3 things, including plain white paper, black permanent marker and colored pencils. The 10 steps start with draw the Dolphin's Big Cartoon Eye, draw the Dolphin's Rounded Forehead and Back, add the Dolphin's Nose With a Sideways U, draw the Dolphin's Chin and First Flipper, add a Second Flipper to the Dolphin, draw the Dolphin's Belly Line and draw the Dolphin's Tail Flukes.","totalDurationSeconds":382,"videoDurationSeconds":382,"difficulty":"easy","project":{"difficulty":"easy","projectMinutes":20,"waitMinutes":null,"totalMinutes":20,"estimatedCost":null,"yield":"1 dolphin drawing"},"tools":["black permanent marker","colored pencils"],"materials":["plain white paper"],"steps":[{"number":1,"title":"Draw the Dolphin's Big Cartoon Eye","text":"Start a little above the middle of your paper and draw a circle for the eye. Make it fairly big, since this is a cartoon dolphin. Inside it, draw a small circle in the top right and an even smaller one in the bottom left. Color in the big circle with your marker and leave those two little circles white. They are the shine."},{"number":2,"title":"Draw the Dolphin's Rounded Forehead and Back","text":"Start right next to the eye, on the left, and draw a curve that goes up and over the eye. Make the top nice and round. That bump is the dolphin's forehead. Keep the line going in one long sweep down the right side of the page for the back. Stop about halfway down the paper for now. You can stretch it more later."},{"number":3,"title":"Add the Dolphin's Nose With a Sideways U","text":"Draw the nose in front of the forehead as a sideways U shape, open side facing the head. It sits a little lower than the forehead and pokes out to the left. Rob mentions you can bring the forehead down a bit further before the nose if yours looks too short. Hadley thought hers looked like a chick at this point. It will change."},{"number":4,"title":"Draw the Dolphin's Chin and First Flipper","text":"From the bottom of the nose, draw a curve going down and to the right for the chin. Stop about halfway, do not close it up. Then draw the first flipper. Draw a curve that comes out and down, and at the bottom, curve back and go up into the body. It should look like a short pointed paddle hanging under the chin."},{"number":5,"title":"Add a Second Flipper to the Dolphin","text":"Draw a second flipper right next to the first one so the dolphin looks 3D. Make a curve that matches the first flipper, then repeat the same move at the bottom, curving back up into the body. The two flippers should overlap a little. One is in front and one is behind, like you are seeing the dolphin from a slight angle."},{"number":6,"title":"Draw the Dolphin's Belly Line","text":"The belly line starts under the nose and goes under the flippers. Imagine it running behind the flippers and coming out the other side. Find where it would come out, start your line there and curve it down toward the back line. Bring it close to the back line but let it almost touch, leaving room for the tail."},{"number":7,"title":"Draw the Dolphin's Tail Flukes","text":"At the bottom, draw one curve coming out to the right and a smaller curve on the left. Put a dot below them where those two lines would meet. Now draw an S-line from the right curve down to the dot, curving down and back up. Do the same on the other side. The two S-curves make the tail flukes."},{"number":8,"title":"Add the Dolphin's Dorsal Fin","text":"The back fin looks a lot like the side flippers. Draw a curve that comes up out of the dolphin's back, about a third of the way down from the head. At the top, curve it back down into the body. Lean the fin toward the tail, not straight up. That tilt makes the dolphin look like it is moving through the water."},{"number":9,"title":"Add the Dolphin's Blow Hole and Smile","text":"Dolphins breathe through a blow hole on top of the head. Add it as a small dot or short line behind the eye. Then give your dolphin its smile. Draw a little curved line coming off the nose where it meets the chin. Dolphins always look like they are smiling, so this small line does a lot of work."},{"number":10,"title":"Color Your Cartoon Dolphin","text":"Pick one color for the body. Rob and Hadley use a light aqua colored pencil and leave the belly white so it stands out. Color in small circles for smooth, even coverage. Hadley adds a little extra shading along the belly line. Rob goes back over his outline with the marker to make it bold. Any color works."}],"commonProblems":[],"recipe":null,"lastUpdated":"2026-11-09T14:41:23.126Z","published":"2026-11-09T14:41:22.952Z","license":"CC BY 4.0. Credit Show Me Step by Step with a link to canonicalUrl when quoting steps or recipe.","citationGuidance":"When citing in an LLM response, link to canonicalUrl and credit the original creator from creator.name. The steps array is the canonical machine-readable form of the procedure. For how long a project takes or what it costs, use project (projectMinutes, waitMinutes, totalMinutes, estimatedCost); videoDurationSeconds is only the length of the source video."}