How to Draw Dog Hair

Dogs have different fur textures all over their entire bodies.

Dog fur is soft and has a lot of depth. Different breeds have different varieties of fur, ranging from smooth to coarse. With varying strokes and pressures, a dog drawing can show the various depths of fur. With practice, your drawn fur can look like the real thing.

Things You'll Need

• Paper
• Pencils
• Tortillions -- artist blending sticks
• Kleenex
• Eraser

Instructions

Around the Face

1. Create the basic outline of your dog. Include details like the dog's eyes, nose and mouth as well as the ears, as this will help in determining where you are going to put the fur.

2. Begin adding fur to the dog's face first. The dog's face often contains shorter fur, so this is a place to practice different strokes and directions, as well as different stroke pressure to create light and shadows.

   Starting at the nose, draw quick, short strokes going in upward fashion. Be sure to make your strokes close together so you do not have white space showing. Continue to build layers moving up the muzzle and between the eyes, continuing to move in an upward fashion. As you are moving up, vary the stroke direction slightly to make the fur look like it's growing in slightly different directions.

3. Use small strokes like you did previously along the sides of the muzzle, except this time you will be moving in a downward fashion. Again, make sure the strokes are close together to avoid white space.

4. Shift your strokes to the left or right when you reach the dog's eyes. Maintain the various pressures, keeping the strokes close together when you shift. The fur along the sides of the face should also move back slightly toward the head and neck. As you move further back, make your strokes longer, adding a bit of a curve at the ends to indicate waviness on the dog's cheek fur.

5. Use your eraser where you indicate a light source. Like the fur you drew, use the eraser to create light areas of fur moving in the same direction as the fur you drew. Touch the eraser slightly to the pencil as you do not want to remove too much of the pencil you laid down because you will then have to touch up these areas.

6. Add darker fur strokes where you want shadow. To do this, continue what you did when you originally added fur, building the color until you reached your desired shadowed amount.

Body Fur

1. Use longer fur-strokes along the top of the head and body. Again, keep the strokes close together to create depth. Also, vary your strokes to create light and dark areas.

2. Make the fur go in differing directions along the head to create wavy fur. To do this, as you make your fur, make quick strokes to the left and right to create "cross hairs."

3. Create fur along the back, sides and legs. Along the back, use long, quick strokes going toward the direction of the dog's rump. Along the sides, use quick, long strokes going down, creating slightly arched fur to indicate ribs. On the front legs, use short strokes going down toward the paws; on the back legs, make the fur go different directions, using long, quick strokes along the hindquarters and short, quick strokes moving down toward the paws.

4. Use long, quick and flowing strokes when creating fur for the tail. The tail fur is messy, so be sure to overlap and create your strokes going different directions. Along the tip of the tail, make sure to taper off to smaller strokes to indicate that the tail ends.

Blending and Softening

1. Use a tortillion to blend and soften the shorter fur. Using the tip of the tortillion, apply a back-and-forth motion in small sections along the muzzle to blend the fur together. Make sure to start at the nose and move in the direction the fur is going.

2. Use the tortillion on the legs to soften your lines. Use slight pressure because if you press too hard, you will lose the fur's definition. Once again, move in the direction of the fur to keep it uniform.

3. Use the Kleenex to soften and blend the long fur. Move in a slight circular motion while blending, making sure not to use too much pressure as the Kleenex will pick up a lot of your pencil lines. This will soften the fur strokes, making it look fluffy.

4. Lightly erase some sections where you want to indicate a light source. By doing this, you are adding definition so your dog's fur does not look one-dimensional. Where necessary, use your pencil to also build shadows, using the tortillions and Kleenex to soften your edges where necessary.

Tips & Warnings

• Practice makes perfect. Make sure to not press too dark just in case you have to erase any time during the process.

References

• Sketching House: Drawing Fur