How to Draw a Capuchin Monkey

Series Summary

Drawing and sketching refers to two-dimensional pieces of art made by marking on a surface with a variety of mediums. Drawing tools can include graphite pencils, pen and ink, colored pencils, charcoals and chalk and pastels. It is the most foundational skill an artist possesses. The practice of drawing and sketching as an art form became widely popular in 15th-century Europe when paper became generally available. The famous journal of Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci contains hundreds of sketches, brainstorms and observations that inspire draftsmen today. Almost every form of imaginable art involves some level of drawing or sketching. In this free video series on drawing, a professional cartoonist and illustrator demonstrates how to draw various objects and animals. Find out how to draw both a realistic car and a cartoon automobile, and learn how to use buildings to understand perspective. Get tips on drawing different species of monkey, including spider monkeys, howler monkeys and capuchin monkeys. Start drawing and illustrating with these helpful demonstrations.

Video Transcript

"Okay folks in this clip I'm going to teach you how to draw a Capuchin monkey. I'm going to start right here and we're going to do what first of all I would describe as just the basic outer proportions and dimensions of the monkey itself. Start by drawing sort of an odd oval shape, which will be the foundation for your head. Then come in and we're going to draw his back kind of coming on down like that, that will be the top back part of his body. And as you're doing this, especially with free features, it's okay if you don't draw a perfectly smooth, straight lines like I did right here. Simply because you know a lot of times you're going to be feeling out the design, and there's nothing wrong with kind of experimenting while you feel it out. This line right here is going to be his leg, and it's going to kind of come behind what will be his arm. So we're going to kind of draw it in like that. And monkey's often times will be found sitting in more squatted positions, so it's okay to kind of draw them that way. Make his arm kind of come out like that, both of them will kind of be resting right out in front of him. And we'll get to those in a second along with the feet. Now we're going to go back to the head right here, because that's going to be one of the more important parts. Now the first thing that you're going to want to do is the eyes, I think. And if you're drawing a cartoon, obviously you can do this a wide variety of ways, but I'll tell you one characteristic that this monkey has, his eyes are very dark. Most monkeys have very dark eyes, if you've noticed. You don't see a lot of white in any of their eyes. So if I were you I'd fill up most of his eye with black, just to kind of give it the right effect. Then of course add a little personality, he goes kind of come up in the angle of his eyebrows a little bit. Most monkeys seem to have kind of like an inquisitive look naturally. Going to give him tiny little nostrils right in here. Just like so. And then just to kind of give him that monkey look, I'm going to draw kind of little ooo, ooo, like he's making the ooo noise. Just kind of, yea, yea, give it a little more character and a little more personality. Now his ears for Capuchin are kind of right in here on the side of his head, some monkeys are a little higher up. Capuchin ears are a little bit further down, and then obviously you're going to want to add a little bit of fur definition on the sides. You're going to want to come up here and kind of encircle the eyes, this will be the fleshy part of the face. The furry part being over here. Just like that. Now we've got his back kind of going already, so kind of come down here and draw the fur along side his back, coming up here and give him a tail. Another distinct characteristic I would say. You don't have to make that as hairy if you don't want to. Now to add detail tot he feet, just ,kind of come in here along the bottom, hands same way. These Capuchin monkeys don't really have large hands, they have little bit smaller limbs. So you don't have to add quite the length that you would add to say a gorilla or any other monkey really. Because a lot of them, I mean they do use their hands for climbing, but Capuchin monkeys a little bit smaller hands. They're kind of like spider monkeys. And that's pretty much it. If you got that down you've got yourself a nice little Capuchin monkey."