By Show Me Step by StepPublished
Based on a video by Art for Kids Hub.
A cartoon dolphin is one of the friendliest animals you can draw, and it only takes a handful of curves. Rob from Art for Kids Hub draws this one with his daughter Hadley, side by side, so you get two versions to follow. They draw in black marker and color with a single aqua pencil. The finished dolphin is leaping out of the water with a big shiny eye and a little smile.
Most dolphin drawings start with the body outline and end up with a tiny eye squeezed in at the end. Starting with the eye flips that. You place the eye first, kind of big, and the whole head grows around it. That big eye is what makes it cartoon cute. Leave the two highlight circles white when you fill it in. They make the eye look wet and shiny.
Dolphins have a rounded forehead called a melon, and that bump is what separates a dolphin from a shark or a fish. Hadley hears it as "four heads", which gets a good laugh in the video. Draw the forehead high and round, then let the line keep going down the back in one long sweep. Put the nose in front of it as a short sideways U, lower than the forehead.
The body bends in a gentle arc, head up and tail tucked under, like a dolphin leaping out of a wave. The belly line is the trick. It starts under the nose, disappears behind the flippers and comes back out lower down. Imagine it passing behind the flippers so the two ends line up. That one overlap makes the drawing look 3D.
Rob and Hadley use one light aqua Prismacolor pencil and leave the belly white. Hadley adds a little shading along her dolphin's belly for depth. Crayons, markers or oil pastels work too. Real bottlenose dolphins are blue-gray, but Hadley's vote was pink and purple, and nobody is going to argue with her. Add some wavy water lines and a few splashes under the tail to finish the scene.
This is a good one to draw next to a child. Each person gets a sheet, you draw one step at a time, and you compare as you go. Pause the video whenever someone falls behind. Hadley added eyelashes and turned hers into a girl dolphin halfway through, and that is the point. As Rob says at the end, it does not have to look like theirs. Have fun with it.
Stay in the water with a shark, a sea turtle or a fish. For the background, learn how to draw waves.
10 steps · about 6 minutes.Check off each step as you go and your progress saves automatically.
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.
Tip
Color around the highlights slowly. If you cover one, a white gel pen can bring it back.
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.
Tip
A high, round forehead is what makes it read as a dolphin and not a shark.
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.
Tip
Keep the nose short and rounded. A long pointy nose starts to look like a bird.
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.
Tip
Leave a gap between the chin line and the back line. The belly line fills it later.
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.
Tip
Draw the back flipper a touch smaller. Things farther away look smaller.
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.
Tip
Line the two ends of the belly up as if they were one line. That sells the 3D look.
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.
Tip
The dot is your target. Aim both S-curves at it so the tail comes out even.
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.
Tip
Keep the fin small. A big tall fin starts to look like a shark.
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.
Tip
Add eyelashes like Hadley did if you want a girl dolphin.
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.
Tip
Press lightly first and add a second layer for a deeper color.
Keep going
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How to Draw a Dolphin - Easy Cartoon Dolphin for Kids
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