Badly drawn dogs. The ultimate step by step guide for people with ZERO creativity

I often hear people claim they have no creative ability, so in an effort to help people find their inner artist I have decided to start a detailed series of how to draw things. We will not be producing photo quality masterpieces, this is about inner beauty. It's about putting pencil to paper and having a go, this is the definitive guide to badly drawn dogs.

If you want even more detail, I have attempted my very first D.Tube video. If it has all worked as planned, you should be able to find it HERE (any comments on how to improve this greatly appreciated)

OK, lets get started.

Practice makes perfect

These were drawn on standard size 3M post it notes, and took about 7 minutes to complete. Sticking a post it note to the table stops it sliding around, if you prefer your work surface to be able to rotate, stick it to a blank piece of paper first.

My pencil of choice is a BIC #2 0.7mm mechanical pencil. The beauty of a mechanical pencil is the uniform size of the graphite. Sharpening a regular pencil to a point makes shading much harder.

Step one, dogs contain 3 basic parts, head, body and legs. You could start anywhere, but I chose the body, taking up about 3/4 of the page. I am aiming for a semi realistic dog, if I wanted a more cartoon style I would probably start with an oversized head.

Next we add a head shape and some ears coming off the side. Real dogs aren't symmetrical, so neither are ours. There will also be a hint of a fold for our ears, that's why the right one kicks out at the base before curving around. Also note the head overlaps the body slightly.

Now time for some feet and lets put some back legs in there. Handy hint, make sure your back leg isn't too central or it will look like your dog has a weird penis.

At this point i decided my dog looked a bit too fat, so out with the eraser. Smudges, don't worry about it, we love smudges.

Redraw the body and legs, just like before.

Ok time for some eyes and a nose. First we erase the overlap line of the body. Circles for eyes. If we were aiming for realism, then these eyes are technically in the wrong place, but honestly is doesn't really matter. Noses are slightly triangular in shape.

Two little circle for nostrils, now our dog can breathe :) Erase some of those line where the ears meet and were starting to look a bit like a dog.

Time for some shading. I am aiming to leave a bit of a white patch down the center of our dogs face. If you wanted a dog with the patch look you could just shade around one eye.

My super secret shading method, more and darker on the edges, less in the middle. Don't worry about fancy lighting and having shadows in the correct places. Also don't try doing all your shading at once. Start light, we can always add more.
If things start getting smudgy, just go with it, we still love smudges.

Time for some more shading. Darken up the creases for the ears and just go over all your previous shading , remember darker on the edges, lighter towards the middle. Might as well put some lines in for the paws as well.

Our dog is starting to look pretty good, but a little on the undead side, so its time for some pupils in those eyes. We could have put these in much earlier but I like leaving them close to the end as its the moment our dog starts to 'come alive'

A final tweak with the eraser, some last minute shading and there you have it, your very own badly drawn dog.

The main distinction between an artist and everyone else is, artists create art. If you have made it this far, you can now congratulate yourself on being an artist, sit back and admire your art.