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Uploaded:November 20, 2011
Artist:Griftercash
Difficulty:Intermediate  Intermediate Skill Level
Steps:10
Updated:November 21, 2011
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How to Draw a Sugar Skull

Someone actually requested me to do a tutorial for a sugar skull. I had never heard of that before so I gave it a shot. She asked me for the tutorial to be easy. Hopefully it is not too hard to follow.

Tags
how to draw a tribal angel, tribal angel
how to draw a sugar skull
how to draw an anorexic male
how to draw a sugar skull step 1

STEP 1.

I always try to use some guide lines, a circle and some straight horizontal and vertical lines, it helps me structure the skull. You need more guide lines, draw them.
 
how to draw a sugar skull step 2

STEP 2.

Two circles for the eyes, usually it would some kind of parallelogram but I will try circle to be able to put more decorations. An upside down heart for the nose is not too hard to draw. Then comes the tricky parts, I know the teeth should be between the middle of each eye so I imagined two straight lines and drew the top part. The cheek bones too are tricky but with the guide lines it's easier than taking a guess. Then I drew the jaw and completed it with the head shape.
 
how to draw a sugar skull step 3

STEP 3.

10 teeth on the top part; 5teeth on the left and the right. 10 teeth on the bottom; 5teeth on the left and the right. I try to make the teeth in the middle bigger than the teeth on each side, just to give the illusion of the teeth being further back and smaller. Then I filled the rest black and redefined the whole skull.
 
how to draw a sugar skull step 4

STEP 4.

Let's start decorating this skull with some petals around the eyes. Sketching bigger circles around the eyes to draw nice curves could help.
 
how to draw a sugar skull step 5

STEP 5.

Now it's getting harder, I started by drawing two curves on each side of the nose, following the the nose without making the lines touch each other. Then I attached a swirl to each curved lines going on the opposite direction. Then I drew a swirl in each cheek bones following the outline and leaving a gap. I drew a curved line under each eye and completed it with some dots, drops, circles and two weird shaped triangles. Always making sure to leave gaps between everything.
 
how to draw a sugar skull step 6

STEP 6.

For no particular reason I drew a third eye between the eyes. Then as usual I followed the curves of the third eye and split the line in two to make two hooks close to the nose. Then I drew some circles to give it more decorations.
 
how to draw a sugar skull step 7

STEP 7.

For fun I gave the skull some eyebrows and then I drew a swirl on each side. I have to admit that if I wasn't drawing it in photoshop with my wacom tablet I would have folded a paper in two, drew half the skull, drew all the decorations on one side and then traced the other half two make the whole drawing more symmetrical.
 
how to draw a sugar skull step 8

STEP 8.

I like pentagrams, so I drew one pentagram in the right eye, pointing up for positive meaning in the right eye, maybe for righteousness. And the inverted pentagram, pointing down in the left eye. Having good and bad in the same drawing. Maybe one side could be light and the other side could dark when it will be time to color it.
 
how to draw a sugar skull step 9

STEP 9.

3 Half circle on the top of the head. 2 short and big swirls on each side followed by longer and smaller swirls going on the opposite side. I put 2 curved lines giving the illusion the there are more decoration on the skull going to the back of the head. Then I drew some horizontal drops and diagonal drops going on the opposite side. To complete the forehead I put some more drops, circles, and swirls where I had space. Then I drew the weird pentagonal shape in the forehead, I had no clue what to put there so I followed with curvy lines and that's what it did.
 
how to draw a sugar skull step 10

STEP 10.

For the the jaw I started by drawing the big swirls in the chin and finished them with a smaller swirl behind the teeth, on the bone. Behind the smaller swirls I draw 2 curved lines and 3circles in between. Then I drew the 3 curved scratches, giving the illusion they continue in the back of the jaw. Since I had space left, I drew circles and lines behind the big swirls and that's it. All is left to do is to color it, something I might do later and put it in my artworks. I'm pretty sure that by drawing big decorations first and then completing it with smaller ones, you could easily draw sugar skulls completely different and still be pretty cool to look at.
 

Comments: Post Comment

 
RogerRabbit's comment

 

RogerRabbit ~ May 16, 2012, 11:43:38 AM
i'm came out not to bad but i have to salute salute you
 
griftercash's comment

 

griftercash ~ Feb 16, 2012, 11:35:38 PM
Oh ok thanks. Unfortunately my Spanish is as rusty as my Russian which is as rusty as my Vietnamese and my Vulcan hehehe. I'm actually from Montreal Canada so I speak mostly bad French and English. Thanks for the comment and have a nice day.
@BlackDemon
these are actually caled calaveras. but really cool, just awesome hai omgomg omgomg omgomg omgomg omgomg omgomg O_o O_o O_o meowla evil jawdrop jawdrop jawdrop jawdrop wow wow wow yay yay yay yay yay plotting x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x
 
BlackDemon's comment

 

BlackDemon ~ Feb 14, 2012, 6:18:46 PM
these are actually caled calaveras. but really cool, just awesome hai omgomg omgomg omgomg omgomg omgomg omgomg O_o O_o O_o meowla evil jawdrop jawdrop jawdrop jawdrop wow wow wow yay yay yay yay yay plotting x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x x_x
 
griftercash's comment

 

griftercash ~ Jan 8, 2012, 6:23:20 PM
Thanks alot for the comments. There's a lot of hours under most of my drawing espeechlessially if it's something I'm not familiar with. All it takes is the will to acheive what you want to acheive and keep on trying even if it takes a lot of paper and speechlessmulative hours. Even if it's not in art like drawing the advice is still valide for anything.
@Kaitlyn521
its pretty cool nd so r u i cant draw worth speechless hai
 
Kaitlyn521's comment

 

Kaitlyn521 ~ Jan 7, 2012, 9:54:00 AM
hai plotting stupid stupid ill ill rock
 
Kaitlyn521's comment

 

Kaitlyn521 ~ Dec 29, 2011, 8:19:41 PM
its pretty cool nd so r u i cant draw worth speechless hai
 
griftercash's comment

 

griftercash ~ Nov 23, 2011, 1:25:31 PM
Thanks to all for the comments, it's encouraging to draw even more.
 
griftercash's comment

 

griftercash ~ Nov 23, 2011, 1:24:07 PM
I tried, it's not really colorful now but soon I'll try to color it and put it in my artwork. I have to admit I'm not too great at matching colors in drawings. I hope it's ok and it is what you were looking for. Have a nice day.
@giraffey9
was this my request? it looks like it! thanks i will totally draw it and upload it for all to see! inlove X3 yay hai boogie omgomg meowla singing rock smile
 
griftercash's comment

 

griftercash ~ Nov 23, 2011, 1:06:47 PM
It was a request from a girl who wanted a tutorial on a very colorful skull and wanting to know more about it she said something like dia de la mouerta I think, so I googled it and found some drawings of skulls. I got inspired from those drawing and I made this tutorial.
@ninjaloco22
the sugar skulls are from a mexican tradition called the day of the dead it is about to remember your family or friends that have left this world if you want to see this beautiful tradition come to mexico the 2 of november ViVa MeXiCo!!!! yay
 
ninjaloco22's comment

 

ninjaloco22 ~ Nov 22, 2011, 8:06:48 PM
the sugar skulls are from a mexican tradition called the day of the dead it is about to remember your family or friends that have left this world if you want to see this beautiful tradition come to mexico the 2 of november ViVa MeXiCo!!!! yay
 
:lol: confused :fear: X3 :x_x: :shakefist: :zzz: :shrug: :inlove: =D =( :bow: :boogie: :innocent: :omgomg: O_o :3
:rolling: :plotting: :ill: =$ :fart: :hai: :mature: ;p ^^; :drool: :stupid: :poke: :tomatoe: :threaten: T_T :snooty: :singing:
B) :yay: :yawn: :watermelon: :wtf: :wow: :jawdrop: :paranoid: :dumb: :evil: :angry: :speechless: :blank: :rock: :salute: =B ;)
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