By CraftingStepByStepPublished
Based on a video by Art for Kids Hub.
This cute raccoon drawing comes from Art for Kids Hub, where a dad and his son draw side by side at a red table. You start with two huge shiny eyes and build the whole cartoon raccoon around them: a little nose, fluffy cheeks, pointed ears, the famous mask, short legs and a big striped tail. Then you color it grey and give it green eyes.
You need a black marker, a sheet of paper and colored pencils. It takes about nine minutes.
Three things. The mask, the ringed tail and the dark paws. Without them, this same body reads as a fox, a cat or a husky pup. Draw the mask as a curved band that wraps around each eye and meets at a V on the forehead. Then give the tail five or six curved stripes. Curved, not straight. Curves make the tail look round.
The big eyes are what make it cute. Leave a gap between them for the nose, and keep the highlight circles in the same spot in both eyes.
A fine point permanent marker gives the bold outline in the video. Plain printer paper is fine for practice. A heavier drawing pad keeps the ink from bleeding and takes colored pencil layers better. Nervous about mistakes? Sketch in pencil and trace it after.
For color, the video uses colored pencils: light grey for the body, dark grey for the mask and stripes, black for the paws, and two greens for the eyes. Markers work too, but go light on the grey so the black lines still show.
Grey is the hard color here. Press lightly for the body and go over it twice instead of pressing hard once. Then switch to a darker grey for the mask, the ear edges and every other tail stripe. Leave the stripes in between light. That light, dark, light pattern is what makes the tail read as ringed from across the room. The paws get the darkest color of all, so the raccoon looks like it wears little black gloves. Leave the chest and the inside of the ears white.
Draw the eyes big. The dad says it himself at the end: his son's bigger eyes looked better. Big eyes leave room for the mask and fill the page, and they are easier for small hands to color.
Once it is done, give your raccoon a scene. A trash can lid is the classic joke. A pile of fall leaves works for an October classroom wall.
New to drawing? Start with how to draw for the basics.
10 steps · about 9 minutes.Check off each step as you go and your progress saves automatically.
Start with two big circles near the middle of your page. Leave a gap between them. That space is for the nose and the mask later. Inside the top right of each eye, draw a smaller circle for the light. Draw a C shape around it for the pupil, then a tiny circle at the bottom left. Color the pupils black and leave the little circles white.
Tip
Go big with the eyes. Bigger eyes make a cuter raccoon and give you more room for the mask.
Right below the eyes and between them, draw a small V. Connect the top of the V with a short line so it becomes a triangle. Then color it in black. Keep it small. A tiny nose leaves the eyes as the main feature of the face, and that is where the cuteness comes from. Check that it sits in the middle of the gap.
Tip
Look at both eyes before you place the nose. Center it between them, a little lower than the bottom of the eyes.
Start out to the left of one eye. Draw a wide, spread out U that dips under the nose and comes back up on the other side. Now add a little V notch coming in on each side of the U. Those notches make the bushy cheeks. Then draw the top of the head going up over the eyes and back down to meet the cheeks.
Tip
Keep the U wide. A narrow U squeezes the eyes and leaves no room for the cheeks.
On top of the head, draw a line straight up, then curve it back down to the head. The outside of the ear is curved and the inside is straight. Repeat on the other side. Try to bring both ears up to the same height. It already starts to look like a raccoon at this point, even without the mask.
Tip
Draw the second ear while looking at the first one. Matching is easier that way.
Here is the raccoon part. Draw an upside down U that goes up and around one eye and back down to the cheek. Do the same around the other eye. On the forehead, draw a V that lines up with the ears. Then add a thicker curve along the outer edge of each ear, and a small straight-then-curved shape inside each one.
Tip
Let the mask lines hug the eyes loosely. A tight mask makes the eyes look small.
From under one cheek, draw a short zigzag line coming down for the fur on the chest, then curve it at the bottom. Next to it, draw another zigzag and a line coming down for the front leg. Keep it short. Curve it at the bottom and back up for the back of the leg. Add the second front leg right beside it.
Tip
Short legs look cartoon cute. Stop the line sooner than you think.
Picture the body going behind the front leg. Draw a line for the belly that comes out the back and curves up. Now the back leg. Draw a curve that connects to the belly, then a line forward that matches the front leg. Add one more curve for the back of the leg, and a curve from the cheek around to the back.
Tip
Make the back legs the same length as the front legs so your raccoon stands level.
Your raccoon is missing a big, huge tail. Draw a small zigzag where the tail meets the body for fur. Then draw a big curve going up and out. Come back down with another big curve. Stop before you connect, and draw a second zigzag to match the first one. That closes the tail with a fluffy edge.
Tip
Make the tail almost as tall as the body. A big tail is what sells a raccoon.
Draw curved lines across the tail for stripes. Curved, not straight, so the tail looks round. Space them evenly and add two at a time. Then add a curve near the top of each leg and another near the bottom for the dark paws. Oops, only three legs? Add a fourth leg behind the others with its own paw curve.
Tip
Curve every stripe the same direction. That keeps the tail looking 3D.
Now color. The video uses colored pencils. Light grey for the body, dark grey for the mask, ears and tail stripes, black for the paws. Leave the chest white. For the eyes, color the outside light green and leave a white space at the bottom. Add dark green at the top, then a little black at the very top so the eyes look shiny.
Tip
Color in small circles instead of long strokes. The grey goes on smoother and looks like fur.
Keep going
How to Draw a Squirrel
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