How To Draw Skulls

How to draw skulls became recently almost a ”must know skill” because of the extreme popularity of the theme during the past few years.

A skull, that dark and somewhat weird theme which is associated mainly with death is now regularly appearing in fashion or accessories. It is printed on T-shirts and women’s stockings.

Whatever the reason for such popularity might be it doesn’t need to be ignored or to pretend that it does not exists.

A lot of us want to avoid drawing skulls because of its morbid character…but, come on, let’s take a bit different look at the whole thing.

Skull represents us, humans. I have a skull and you have yours too. Everyone has one, so why don’t we just make a simple pencil drawing of a skull?

I made this quick drawing in order to show you a simplified version of human skull.

Click on the above image to enlarge it. Before you start to draw, I would like you to observe first carefully the total shape enlarged, eye openings and their shape. They are not round but rather irregularly prolonged like a deformed egg. The openings are not just complete black holes.

Draw a simple outline of the skull first. On the above picture I already corrected some excessive pencil lines. Whatever shape is OK on the first try, it doesn’t need to resemble to my drawing at all.

If you learn how to draw skulls the very first time, outline the entire shape by tilted loose hold pencil, the strokes would be more accurate and you will probably capture almost the perfect shape on the first try. This method works.

Start to shade the top of the head and the eye openings. Slightly shade those parts, which will be darkened later in order to crate a preliminary plasticity and gradation.

Lets start to gradually darken the eye and nasal (nose) openings. These three holes will probably be of the darkest tone on the skull drawing. Slightly outline the teeth too.

Every time, if you feel some difficulty, observe the final drawing and simply copy what you see. It is important to always watch the direction of the pencil strokes.

Especially the longer pencil strokes because they often determine the final shaping of the object, whether it is round or square, etc.

Notice that the teeth are not white. It is good to put only a weak shade on the teeth. Very gently darken the face of the teeth so that your drawing will look more natural and realistic. Finally, outline the whole skull with a stronger pencil in order to stand out on the white paper.

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What Other Visitors Have Said

Thanks I made one on my White T-shirts and everyone liked it and I told them about your site they all loved it too

Nice Drawing I like this drawing.

woah I'm 13 years old, and on my first try i've managed to ace the drawing, you make it so easy to follow.

Really good I've just drawn the skull picture and it turned out extremely professional. and as Im still very young my art gallery will be complete with this sinical ...

WOW! This is so fantastic. I've never had the confidence to draw, but you made it so easy. My first attempt is better than I expected. I'm going to keep trying,...

GREAT DRAWING i think the people are great at drawing

useful very useful, every time i tried to draw a skull , uber fail, but this looks like a very good beggining thank you a lot

skull its actualy cool. I got a 6a in art for doing that.

AWESOME JOB!! you have a special gift.

im in awe this picture is inspirational u have a talent n im shocked cause the best drawings i have are skulls but they are a tattoo sort of design

Cool That's the way I've always do it but urs
Is better man u can draw ur but off

connie jessicahh can you post a link to your friends skulls please i am curious as to how good they are thanks and followed the steps and my drawing turned out goood , very ...

too hard all of the pictures are hard to follow and need to be moer simple!!!!!!! sorry! :(

letter great i tried it and it was very good thanks

wow wow that really helped me thank　you now i've got a present for my dad

madeline corrie and cool picks wow i love this and it was so easy and i loved it so muck and i am going to show all of my friennds and well i have to go ttyl
luv yu

pretty it's good but people also want to learn to draw human faces (you know the one's with SKIN) i like this but if someone could put a face with skin on this ...

easy that is so easy my friends even said that mine looked better than this one hahahahahhahhahaha

im a goth this is like so awesome i am like so printing this

wow! Thats really cool. AWSOME!!!

Nice Thanks a lot! I'm good at drawing architectural things like buildings and such but not so good with proportions as far as physics of humans and animals....

wow! That's actually awesome! You're a real artist.

awesome aaawwweeesssooommmeeee
except the shading