Cartoon skulls are a lot of fun to draw, they are also easy to create and the final effect is normally hilarious. You landed on the best place to learn how to draw them!
We’ll start this tutorial with a simple drawing of a cartoonish skull. We are going to create a stylized skull using very basic shapes and we are going to give it a funny look. Keep on reading and you’ll know what I mean.
The first step to drawing this skull is going to be to draw a simple circle as best as you can. The secret to drawing a stylized cartoonish skull is to keep your lines really loose, we do not want too much precision here. So draw your circle by hand.
Also, divide the circle into four sectors as shown in the picture. However contrary to other drawings, we will use these construction lines to stay away from symmetry! We want the skull to be all cranked up!
Cartoon Skulls – The Outline
Next, draw the upper mouth bone and the lower bone (obviously the latter is going to float a little bit). Use the green line in the picture as a reference.
Your skull doesn’t have to be identical to mine, try positioning the jaw at a different angle for example!
As I told you before let’s use the construction lines to position the eyes in a completely asymmetrical way. I have even drawn them of different sizes. This is going to contribute to the spooky look of the cartoon skull.
Using the jawline as a reference start also to play with a possible shape for the teeth (or what remains of them)! I have drawn three, how many your skull is going to have?
Cartoon Skulls – The Cranked Face
Well, I decided to go for three teeth also with the jawline. It just looks funnier to me like this.
Now it’s time for a very important addition to your skull, the nose! Be particularly careful how you position it because the nose is going to give your skull personality.
Time to start refining your drawing. Use ink or crayons to fill up the eye cavities with a deep black; also start working at the contour of the skull and make it thicker and blacker. This is going to give depth to the drawing. And now the final touches.
Cartoon Skulls – The Final Touch
Make the contour of the skull even thicker, fill up the nose with deep black, and, most importantly, position the white irises in the eye sockets.
This is the final touch and the final occasion to give a funny expression to your skull. Play with the positioning of the parts (nose, eye sockets, irises, jaw) and you’ll see how many variations you can get even off such a simple design!
