How To Draw Wolf Step By Step
Drawing a wolf, although intimidating, is an achievable task with practice and basic drawing tactics. There’s not one, but many different ways to approach drawing wolves, and they vary in difficulty, depending on the type of picture you’re looking to create. Whether you’re a novice artist or experienced illustrator, here are a few tips and tricks to help you master the wolf.
Start with a Simple Drawing
Don’t dive into a complex and intricate wolf design straight away. Be sure to start off with a basic and simplified outline of a wolf. Draw the legs, tail, muzzle and ears on the canvas. Sketch out the body in thin and light strokes, so that you can cover up mistakes. When you feel satisfied, you can start to thicken up and darken the lines, to build your wolf.
Work on the Muzzle
Drawing the muzzle of the wolf can be a challenge, especially at first. Here is where mastering the fundamentals really pays off. Draw a circle as a guideline for the muzzle, then mark out the basic lines before erasing them. Perform the same process with the eyes and nose, tracing around the circle and building up the details with triangular shapes.
Draw the Details of the Wolf
Fine tune the wolf’s details such as the fur and the emotion of the character. Use a combination of quick, small and thin lines to simulate fur, and be sure to vary the direction, shape and thickness of each stroke. Include a lot of white-space between the fur lines for a realistic finish. Consider the perspective of the wolf, by darkening the lines on the tail and muzzle, which could suggest a forward-looking head, or the wolf’s startled alertness.
Colouring and Shading the Wolf
Now that the base layers of the wolf’s anatomy and features have been drawn, it’s time to add the colour. Colouring can be done with pencils, markers, charcoal and pastels. Start by shading the shadows and highlights with very light pencil strokes. Use both a blue/black and a grey/white to shade. For example, like a real wolf, its eyes would have an inner highlighting, which you can draw under the eyes with a light pencil stroke.
Painting the Wolf
For a more stylised look, spray paint can be used to add an intense colour scheme to the drawing. Alternatively if you are using watercolour, start off with thin layers and build up to add more texture and detail to the wolf’s fur. For a more abstract approach, use spray paint effects such as splattered paint. Go wild!
Background and Landscape
The background and landscape of the wolf’s environment is just as important as the wolf itself. The background allows you to set the scene, emphasise the environment and even tug at the viewer’s emotion. Start off with a light pencil to add basic details of the environment such as trees and grass, then add in elements like clouds, moonlight and fog if desired. Once your wolf and its environment is set, thicken up the lines and finish off with a thick black marker.
Texturing and Adding the Finishing Touches
Create the mood by adding in particular features such as the wolf’s fur, which cannot be done with a black marker. Use a variety of pencils and use light strokes to add small jagged lines that suggest fur. You can even use a white pencil or white ink to create a bright spotlight or moonlight across the picture. Finally, colour blend the drawing with a damp cloth and carefully move the colour around for a subtle texture. And there you have it, a wolf drawing!
