How to Draw a Lion Cub 3/4 View

Hello Everyone!

In this tutorial I’m going to show you step by step how to draw a lion cub ¾ portrait in contour form. For those of you who haven’t heard this lingo before a contour drawing means the drawing only has lines. A fully rendered drawing has shape, form, depth, and texture.

When drawing, it is extremely important to acquire really good reference material of your subject. The ideal situation would let you draw directly from life which in turn would let you see light reflections, and color splashes that might not be picked up from a camera with its harsher dark to light ratio. Unfortunately, it’s not always that simple. For example this tutorial is structured around drawing a lion, and I’m pretty sure last time I check there weren’t any running outside my window. Sadly, this author does not live near a zoo either so she had to resort to the internet.

Keep in mind, that although the information highway is a great tool, it can also be a trap. Photos placed on the internet are copyrighted unless free use is permitted by the creator. Luckily there are some websites that let you use their reference free. For example, I used a reference photo taking by Amandas-sketches off the site Deviantart.com. Here is the link if you’d like to check it out yourself.

http://browse.deviantart.com/resources/stockart/animals/#/d3i7v3tng

The best scenario would be that you’ve taken your own reference. Then you never have to worry about someone trying to sue you for stealing their image. And you’ll have proof in your favor in the unlikely event that someone tries.

Now let us get back to drawing. Normally if you look at a head straight on the midway point should be just below the eye or in some case right through them. As the axis of the head turns so will the midline.

In a ¾ portrait the head is turned partway between strait on and profile. You should still see both eyes. If the head is completely sideways that would be a profile view. Like when someone is standing next to you. You will only see the side of their face. So keep that in mind when trying to do a ¾ view.

Now that we have gone over the difference between a ¾ view and a profile, lets grab our reference, and start the tutorial.

Every object can be broken down into simple geometric shapes. So for our first step we’re going to start with a simple circle for the lions head.

Next we’ll add a box for the snout and ears. Now it’s starting to look like something!

After we get our geometric shapes in place it’s time to start adding some detail work.

Now for the final details!

Once you have the general outline you can decided to push the drawing farther and start rendering. Than…Ta dah! Congratulations you now have a finished drawing of a lion cub.

Keep a look out for my up-coming article on how to draw animal fur.