How to Draw a Big Monkey

Video Transcript

"Joel Hickerson, grindog.com. We're going to draw a big monkey. Ok, we're drawing a big monkey. Now, before when you draw a monkey, you always draw a really big head, because it's fun to really exaggerate the features, but since this is a big monkey, we're going to draw from the perspective of his stomach, looking up, so big monkeys, are big round rascals, so you start with the stomach, because we're going to start from the front, and work our way backwards. There's a stomach. There's his muzzle. There's the back of the head, and as in all monkeys, you exaggerate the ears, so you're not going to lose your ears on this guy, but he's kind of looking down at you. Now, monkeys have really long arms, so you don't want to do anything, but long arms on this monkey, but the perspective is what's going to make this monkey look big, so he's going to be looking down on you. Draw the eyes, and if a monkey looks down, his eyes are at the bottom of his eyeballs, right next to his nostrils, and maybe he's a happy monkey, but maybe he's also a little intimidating, so if we're going to make him an intimidating monkey, we bring his eyebrows in. A little monkey hair on him, and then that's a pretty good, with your construction elements, you've created the monkey. Now, the construction elements, as I've said before, aren't important, so what you really want to concentrate on, is when you come back with your marker, these are the lines that matter, so you've got your monkey looking down, drawing the elements that count. Big old belly, long arms, and these again, like I said, the construction elements don't matter. You don't even have to follow them. They are more guides than anything else, because at the end, you're going to come back and erase them. I give the monkey a little bit of hair, and to do that, you can break up the line a little bit, and this monkey, I think we're going to make him looking down at you, as if maybe you were a banana, so he's happy to have found a food source, so make it big and grinning. The teeth, big ears, big monkey ears, back of the head, with a little bit of hair coming off, big muzzle, the feet. Monkey feet aren't like our feet, so remember to put their toe out, like a thumb. That's always a funny element to give it a belly button, in the middle, like a hairless little stomach area. When you're done, come back. You erase your construction lines. Let's see what you've ended up with, and at that point, is when you can go back in, and replace any missing lines with your marker, that you need, but remember, when you draw in pencil, the pencil parts the construction elements, so draw very lightly, so it's easy to erase these construction lines. That way, it doesn't take as long, and then you can come back in, and add a little bit of white, especially towards the bottom of his body, because you want him sitting down. You want the heaviness to be on the bottom of the form, and that's how you draw a big monkey."