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How To Draw A Dolphin Step By Step

Updated on February 20, 2011

Starting Shape For Your Dolphin Drawing

With any drawing, always start off with a simple shape.
With any drawing, always start off with a simple shape.

Drawing A Dolphin

Dolphins are not my first choice of drawing subjects to draw, but like the rose drawing tutorial I thought I'd give it a go and try to make it as easy as possible to follow the exact process of drawing a dolphin in this easy step by step drawing guide.

Dolphins have that knack of not having that much detail anyway so all you have to concern yourself over is the shape of all of the important parts like the head, mouth and eyes, as well as the dorsal fin and the tail, so that as a whole the correct proportions apply for your dolphin drawing.

To start we draw a simple curve body shape like the one in the image to the right, the curve at the back is just to make a mark for the dolphins body and this will be the central line that all of the rest of the dolphins main features will be attatched to as well as the underside of the opposite spine curve.

Lightly Sketch In The Fins And Eye

A loose and light dolphin sketch of the main features.
A loose and light dolphin sketch of the main features.

Drawing Lightly To Get An Idea Of Your Dolphin

 Drawing lightly is very important when your drawing confidence is low, it is always a good idea to sketch around the details of the fins, the tail and the eye and beak mouth lightly so that you can make up your mind whether the drawing sketch looks okay to continue to the next step.

The light sketch hardly shows up here, but you can see some of the ways it has changed in the following drawing below.

Darken The Pencil Lines On The Dolphin

The lines have been darkened with a 2b pencil.
The lines have been darkened with a 2b pencil.

Clean Up And Darken The Dolphin Drawings Pencil Lines

 Darkening the pencil lines always makes the drawing look much cleaner and straight forward and so we progress on from the light pencil sketch above with a more confident approach to our dolphin drawing.

As there are no specific details, drawing a dolphin is easier than say a tiger, as the design is simple and smooth.

Shade The Dolphins Back, Fins And Beak

The dolphin looks almost finished, but from here you could add colour or really sketch in that detail.
The dolphin looks almost finished, but from here you could add colour or really sketch in that detail.

Dark Pencil Shading On The Back Of The Dolphin

 Shading anything just requires, finding the light source, but on this occasion the dark areas are simply part of the dolphins skin colour, but still we need to add some kind of light source, so this does fine, but only on the back, the fins, the tail and the top of the beak like mouth, the rest remains white as it should be.

There you go, a simple dolphin drawing tutorial, nothing should be hard to draw, as simple sketches done in steps can make a good drawing, always remember that!

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