How to Draw a Dog
1 / 14
Block in the big circle of the dog skull.
It should fill most of your page, with a margin all round.
Drawing on paper instead?
We straighten and clean up the photo for you. Paper counts exactly the same.
About this drawing
A dog is the subject most people request and the one most people get subtly wrong, because there is no such thing as a generic dog. A spaniel and a terrier are not the same animal with different fur - they have different skull proportions, and that is the thing your eye reads first.
So this lesson builds a dog out of adjustable parts: two circles for the head, a box for the muzzle, and a ratio between them you can change. Learn it once with the middling proportions here, then move the muzzle box and you have a different breed.
Step by step
-
Step 1
Block in the big circle of the dog skull.
Everything else gets measured against this, so draw it in one motion rather than in short careful passes. A slightly lopsided shape drawn confidently is more use than a perfect one built out of twelve nervous strokes, because you can correct a shape and you cannot un-see a hesitant line.
Watch out Drawing it small to leave room for detail. The big shape is most of the drawing - use the space.
Check It should fill most of your page, with a margin all round.
-
Step 2
Add the two centre lines, lightly.
These are the rulers for everything that follows. Without them the two halves of the dog drift apart by a few millimetres at a time and you do not notice until it is finished and subtly wrong. Press lightly - they come off at the end.
Watch out Skipping them because it looks symmetrical already. It will not be by the time you are done.
Check They should cross at the middle of the shape you just drew.
-
Step 3
Add a second, smaller circle for the jaw, overlapping low.
It sits below and slightly in front of the skull circle, overlapping it by about a third. This second circle is what gives a dog its heavy lower face, and leaving it out is why beginner dogs look like cats with long noses.
Watch out Placing it entirely below the skull circle instead of overlapping it.
Check The two circles should overlap by roughly a third.
-
Step 4
Draw the muzzle as a box projecting forward from the lower face.
Forward, not down. This box is the single most important proportion in the drawing: about a third of the head's length for a middling dog, shorter for a pug, much longer for a collie. Decide the number and measure it.
Watch out A muzzle that points downward, which makes the dog look like it is sulking.
Check The muzzle should project roughly horizontally from the face.
-
Step 5
Place the eyes on the horizontal centre line.
At the midline, not the upper third - a dog's braincase sits high above its eyes. They also face forward and slightly outward, which is what separates a predator's face from a rabbit's.
Watch out Eyes too high, which reads as a cartoon.
Check The eyes should sit at the vertical middle of the head circle.
-
Step 6
Add the nose at the end of the muzzle, and the mouth line.
A dog's nose is large, rounded and tips slightly downward over the front of the muzzle box. The mouth line runs back from under it and then dips - that dip is the fleshy corner of the lip, and it is very recognisable.
Watch out A small nose sitting flat on the front of the box.
Check The nose should overhang the front of the muzzle box.
-
Step 7
Draw the ears - and draw the breed's ears, not an ear.
Ear shape is the strongest breed signal in the whole drawing. Folded and hanging, upright and triangular, long and heavy: pick one deliberately. Both ears attach high on the skull circle, further back than feels natural.
Watch out Attaching the ears to the top of the head like handles instead of to the sides of the skull.
Check Both ears should attach behind the halfway point of the skull circle.
-
Step 8
Add the brow ridges above the eyes.
Two soft mounds above the eyes, and they carry the entire expression of a dog's face. Raise one and the dog is curious; flatten both and it is calm. This is the cheapest character available in the drawing.
Watch out Leaving the area above the eyes flat, which gives a blank stare.
Check There should be a visible ridge above each eye.
-
Step 9
Draw the neck and shoulders as one wedge below the head.
A dog's neck is thick - much thicker than the head is wide in most breeds - and it comes forward from the shoulders rather than straight down. A thin neck is what makes drawn dogs look fragile.
Watch out A narrow vertical neck, which reads as a giraffe.
Check The neck should be at least as wide as the muzzle is long.
-
Step 10
Break the outline into fur where the coat is longest.
Only at the silhouette, and only where the coat is genuinely long - the cheeks, the chest, the back of the ears. A continuous scalloped edge all the way round looks like a sheep whatever breed you started with.
Watch out Fur marks evenly around the entire outline.
Check Parts of the outline should still be smooth.
-
Step 11
Pick a light direction and shade the muzzle's side plane.
The muzzle is a box, so it has a top plane and two sides, and the side facing away from the light drops in tone sharply. That plane change is what makes a snout project instead of lying flat against the face.
Watch out Shading the muzzle evenly, which flattens it back into the head.
Check You should see a distinct tone change along the top edge of the muzzle.
-
Step 12
Darken the eyes, leaving one small highlight in each.
A dog's eye is nearly black, so go properly dark, and leave a single small highlight in the same position in both eyes. Highlights in different places make the dog look at two things at once, which is unsettling and hard to diagnose.
Watch out Two highlights per eye, or highlights in mismatched positions.
Check Both highlights should be in the same corner of each eye.
-
Step 13
Add the whisker spots and a few coat direction marks.
Detail is suggested, never itemised. A handful of marks in the right places lets the eye fill in the rest, and drawing every one flattens the drawing into texture. Put them where they matter and stop early.
Watch out Adding detail evenly all over, which removes the contrast between busy areas and quiet ones.
Check Step back. You should still read the big shape first, detail second.
-
Step 14
Go over the lines you want to keep, and lose the guides.
This is the step that turns a construction drawing into a finished one, and it is the one most people skip. Press harder on the outline and the features; leave the small stuff light. That difference in weight is what makes a drawing look deliberate rather than traced, and it costs thirty seconds.
Watch out Going over everything at the same weight, which flattens the drawing back out.
Check The outline should be clearly darker than the smallest details.
What this one actually teaches you
This is the proportion-under-pressure lesson. The construction is not new - two circles and a box, the same family of shapes as the cat - but the subject is one you have strong prior expectations about, and those expectations will fight the measurements.
The real skill it builds is treating proportion as adjustable. Once you can say 'the muzzle is a third of the head length' rather than 'that looks about right', you can dial that number and draw a different dog on purpose. That is the difference between copying and drawing.
Practise these: Line confidence Proportion Value range
What you need
A pencil, kept light for the construction, because most of what you draw in the first six steps is scaffolding you will lose.
A photo of the specific dog you want to draw is worth more than any instruction here. The construction gets you 80 per cent of the way; the last 20 per cent is that particular dog's face and cannot be taught in the abstract.
If it's going wrong
If it looks like a bear, the muzzle is too short and too high. A dog's muzzle comes off the LOWER half of the head circle and projects forward, not down.
If the eyes look wrong, they are too high. A dog's eyes sit at about the midline of the head, and beginners almost always place them in the upper third the way they would on a person.
Draw the ears last and draw them from the photo. Ear shape is the single strongest breed signal there is, and a generic ear will make the whole drawing read as generic.
Print the steps
Take it away from the screen. The step sheet prints on one page.
Questions people ask
- Why does my dog look like a bear?
- The muzzle is too short and set too high. It comes off the lower half of the head and projects forward.
- Where do a dog's eyes go?
- At about the midline of the head, not the upper third. This is the most common placement error.
- How do I draw a specific breed?
- Change three things: the muzzle length, the ear shape, and how far the eyes are apart. Everything else stays.
- How do I draw fur?
- Only at the silhouette edge and where the coat changes direction. Fur drawn all over turns the dog into a rug.
- Should I draw the whole body?
- This lesson does head and shoulders, which is what most people actually want and where the likeness lives.
- How long should the muzzle be?
- About a third of the head length for a middling dog. Shorter for a pug, much longer for a collie - it is the number you dial.
- My dog does not look like my dog.
- Work from a photo and check the muzzle-to-head ratio first. That ratio carries more likeness than the eyes do.
- What should I draw after this?
- The eye, at Level 3. A dog portrait lives or dies on the eyes and that lesson is the one that fixes them.