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How to draw flames (part 1)

by Vince

 

If you want to learn how to draw flames you must understand that drawing flames is different from most things you have drawn so far and it's not an easy task.

 

 

 

 

Why drawing flames is so difficult? Well the reason lies in the nature of the flames themselves. They are moving, changing, dancing constantly and that's the reason that make them so fascinating.

 

Their color also changes dramatically according to the material burning and the intensity of the heat. You probably have figured that drawing flames and capturing their essence on paper is going to be an hard task for these reasons.

 

The best thing you can do while drawing flames is trying to simulate them on paper (or digital medium you are using) and give the observer the illusion he is looking at hot, scorching and vivid flames!

 

I will draw different types of flames in this tutorial but the principle to draw them will be always the same. Also the color is very important in giving the illusion of scorching flames. Let's go to see how to draw flames!

 

We will start with a very simple drawing of a small flame and we'll try to get the basic principles to get it right. More complex and elaborated flames need more patience and a bit more skill but are based on the same essential principles.

 

How to draw flames - starting out

 

how to draw flames

 

First thing, symmetry. You want your flames to be asymmetric, completely off or they'll look static and boring. So I have drawn a vertical axis and two horizontal ones to explain what I mean. In drawing the basic shape of the flame I'll stay away from symmetry and I'll try to imagine the flame almost twisting around the middle axis.

 

how to draw flames

 

See what I mean? Start at the base of the flame and draw a curved line like an inverted letter s. Once at the top come back down (see the top arrow) loosely following the curvature of the first line and meet the tip of the flame at the bottom.

 

Now, by using similar motions with your pencil, draw a smaller flame inside. This smaller flame has to be closer to the bottom, it is very important as we are using three basic colors to represent the heat emanating from the flame.

 

how to draw flames

 

The last step is drawing an even smaller flame inside the middle one, like in the drawing above. All flames are colored according to their temperature and they are hotter in the inside than the outside. Higher temperatures produce brighter colors while lower temperatures produce darker colors.

 

Continues to part 2

 

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

 

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