How to Draw a Poodle
Would you like to draw poodles? Here is how to draw an animated, cartoon version of a poodle with step by step, easy to follow, pictures!
Drawing a simple poodle
1. Draw an upside-down 3 leaf clover shape.
2. Draw two circles for eyes inside the bottom leaf of the clover shape.
3. Draw dots in these circles.
4. Draw an inverted triangle below the eyes.
That is going to be the nose.
5. Draw an oval shape below and connected to the clover for a body.
6. Draw two short vertical lines connected to the bottom the oval shape for legs.
7. Draw a little circle on each of the ends of these lines for paws.
8. Draw two more vertical lines for legs.
9. Draw a circle at the end of those lines.
Those are the paws.
10. Draw a curved line on the side of the oval for a tail.
11. Draw another smaller clover shape at the end of the curved line.
12. Finished.
Drawing an advanced poodle
1. The standard poodle is an athletic dog with long legs and a rich coat.
- In line with all dog anatomy, make sure to keep the elbows at chest height. This applies to all other four-legged land mammals, too.
- It is important to learn the basic anatomy of a poodle before drawing on any fancy clips.
- Always sketch and put down a good base before finalizing your image to get all proportions and shapes right.
2. Start out by drawing the chest.
The chest is the base of your drawing and will help you getting the other proportions right.
- It's okay to reference images of poodles or dog skeletons to get the general shape right.
3. Draw the front legs.
Make sure they're in front of the chest and not placed on the sides. There should be no chest protruding in front of the legs from a side view.
- This can be tricky to figure out how to do right, so don't feel bad if you don't get it the first time.
4. Draw the hind legs.
The upper leg down to the heel has a smooth curve, which makes sense if you look at the skeletal structure of the hind leg. You can see that the femur is softly bent.
5. Draw the tail.
Poodles usually hold their tails high which is a subtle detail of their characteristic look and is a more important detail than what it may seem.
6. Draw the head.
Poodles have fairly thin and long muzzles and floppy ears. Once again, we can take help from the skeleton to accurately draw the shape and proportions of the head.
- Doesn't look much like a poodle, does it? That's because we're not done yet. It still needs its fur which is a critical part of the poodle image.
7. Draw on the fur.
Now that we've got the base down, you can choose one of many different poodle clips for its fur to give it that characteristic poodle look! Do it by simply drawing the fur over your poodle "base" and then erasing within the fur lines.
8. Finish!
You have your finished sketch, now you do what you want with it. Add color, shading, ink it, whatever you feel like.
- All these steps also work if you want to draw a poodle from a different angle. Many of these rules also apply to most dogs in general, like the front paws being in front of the ribcage.
Tips
- Experiment with different styles of the clover shape, ovals and circles.