How to Draw a Realistic Santa, Santa Claus

Step 1.

Draw the oval lightly with a No.2 or HB pencil. Make sure you draw it as seen in the picture.

Step 2.

Now draw in the bisecting red line to balance his facial features. Also draw in the slanted curved line for his shoulders and the tipped over picnic table lines for his fingers.

Step 3.

Sketch lightly the crescent red lines for hair line and head mass. Also draw the two circles, the last one has a connecting line...draw that one too.

Step 4.

You can draw in the lines a. for eyebrows, b. for eyes, c. for nose, and d. for mouth.

Step 5.

Now draw in Santa's eyes and wrinkles.

Step 6.

Observe where Santa's features appear in relation to the guidelines. Draw in the bags beneath his eyes, his nose, smile lines, and don't forget the shiny spot on his nose.

Step 7.

Now draw in his forehead wrinkles and eyebrows.

Step 8.

The crescent guidelines will help you place his hat on his head. Draw in the fur of his cap, holly, and jingle bell.

Step 9.

When you sketch his hair, add those straight lines and curls. Try staying close to the lines that represent the direction of his hair. This will help as you shade it in. Also draw in his ears, mustache, and lower lip. Don't forget the bottom fur of his cap.

Step 10.

When you sketch his beard, hair, and sideburn, add those straight lines and curls. Try staying close to the lines that represent the direction of his hair. This will help as you shade it in.

Step 11.

Sketch in the folds of his shirt.

Step 12.

The guidelines of his hand should make it easier to sketch in his fingers. If you haven't already, you can erase your guidelines.

Step 13.

I made this line drawing especially for you if you don't want to do the pencil shading and blending part. You can also color this in with the medium of your choice (crayons, color pencils, etc.). Otherwise, let us continue to the pencil drawing part.

Step 14.

Here is the outline done with a 0.7mm mechanical pencil. Look closely and see if your lines look something like this. You can erase if certain areas like the eyes or nose don't line up. Take you kneaded eraser and dab off the shadow outlines or dark lines with your kneaded eraser for a more realistic look as you shade. Shading transition from dark to light (or visa versa) should be smooth... no harsh lines. Be patient with this, it's not as complicated as you may think. As you do more pictures, this will come easier to you.

Step 15.

The picture that goes with this step shows two different ways to hold your pencil to acquire certain effects. OVERHAND: Holding a sharpened pencil in normal writing form with fingers in the middle or near the lead gives you great control and thin/detailed strokes. UNDERHAND: Holding the pencil at a 45 degrees or near level to the table with end of pencil under your palm with pencil on the flat side, gives you large shading coverage. With the No.2 pencil, you have the exposed lead side to shade with. But for a wider swath, use that Cretacolor Monolith graphite pencil with no wood casing. The whole sharpened portion is all lead, like in the step's picture. Practice the toning values to help you with control.

Step 16.

Best thing you can do when drawing hair is to establish the general shape then work in the main strands of hair by holding your pencil at a 45 degree angle for stroking and coverage. Then, as in the third picture, you can work in more details. But here's a TIP! Don't draw a straight line for the hairline. Do tiny strokes to represent beginning of hair at its root. Look at real people and see their hairline isn't a straight line. Practice and your picture will look more realistic.

Step 17.

Start shading lightly with a pencil, even a No. 2 pencil will do well. Shade diagonally on the forehead, around the eyes, and his cheeks, leaving some white space for highlights.

Step 18.

Fill in the pupils, leaving some catch lights. Fill in the eyebrows with hair lines strokes...lightly. Also darken areas under his cheeks and in his mouth. Add a shadow below his cap on his forehead.

Step 19.

Now add more detailing on the side of his face (making more wrinkles), ear, and cheeks. Also add hair strand lines to his sideburns, mustache, hair, and beard.

Step 20.

Darken near his wrinkles. This adds more depth. Shade in his lips and fingers, lightly.

Step 21.

Shade his trouser straps more darkly with your pencil. Lightly shade his hair (beard, mustache, hair) with the flat side of your pencil. Check out step 15 for more details on how to do this. Add more shading to his shirt and hand.

Step 22.

Your Santa is shaping up just fine. With the flat side of your pencil, stroke in short dabs the fur part of his hat. Shade normally the rest of the cap.

Step 23.

Now shade the holly and his bell!

Step 24.

Blending with a tissue just on his skin area so you do not smudge your details saves messiness and time wasted redoing your details. Use a tortillon or blending stumps to smooth smaller areas. Of course your picture will look lighter. Using a soft tissue lightly over his skin, not smudging over his nose, eyes, white areas is important. You can use the tissue on his beard to spread the gray shading. Now your Santa should look smoother!

Step 25.

*HINT* To have a clean white background, mask the background with paper so no pencil smudges will dirty it up. If so, erase (kneaded eraser). I used a kneaded eraser to add white hair strands to his beard, mustache, sideburns, etc. Also I darkened his eyebrows, inside his mouth, edges of shadows to give depth. It is great to be back again and a pleasure to do another tutorial with you. Please fav, comment, and show your love here. And I will definitely reply back soon or eventually. Love, peace, happiness, success to ya! MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!