How to Draw A Cartoon Tiger Easily

How to Draw A Cartoon Tiger. In real life, tigers can be a little scary. Considered apex predators, they dominate their environment without objection.

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Tigers are also known for their beautiful fur markings. They have orange fur with black and white stripes, one of the most distinctive patterns in the wild.

Tigers also make fairly common appearances as cartoon characters, and it’s easy to see why with their distinctive looks.

Because of its popularity, you’ve probably wondered if you can learn to draw a cartoon tiger.

We’re here to tell you that you absolutely can! In this guide, we’ll walk you through six easy and fun steps that show you how easy it can be when you know what to do.

We will show you how to draw this cute cartoon tiger and give you tips on adding your tips and ideas to the drawing.

With that said, it’s time to start riding! Grab your favorite painting and art tools, and let’s see how to create this adorable cartoon tiger drawing in just 6 easy steps.

How to Draw A Cartoon Tiger

Step 1

The cartoon tiger we will create in this guide is quite complex in its details. It might not seem like it at first glance, but a lot is going on with this design.

However, you don’t have to worry as we break it into more minor elements to make things easier. Let’s start by drawing the tiger’s nose.

This has a rounded topline, and the baselines move inward to converge at a minor point at the bottom of the nose. Once drawn, it will look a bit like a mushroom.

So there will be a part around the tiger’s mouth that looks a bit like a beard, and that’s what we’ll draw next. The curved lines extend from the sides of the nose.

Like drawing the nose, these lines move inward to become thinner at the base. At the bottom of this “beard” part, we will add some jagged lines to make it look hairier.

Finally, in this step, we also outline most of the head. The head is drawn with some wavy, curved lines, and the head is slightly wider at the bottom than the top half.

Finally, finish with three small spiky shapes on top of the head to give it a furry look again. That’s all for now, and then we can move on to step 2!

Step 2

We could have the basic shape of the head, but now we need to add more details to the cartoon tiger drawing. First, we draw a line across the nose.

This line goes around the midpoint and is quite wavy, with a dip in the middle. That’s all we need to do on the nose for now, and then we’ll add some fur on the sides of his head.

This fur can be drawn with a series of connected small pointed lines. These sections extend to the end of the “beard” section you drew in the first step of the tutorial.

Finally, for this step, we’ll draw the ears of this tiger. The ears will be prominent on the head, as seen in our example image.

The top of each ear is drawn with a slightly curved line that extends to a smoother curved line for the bottom. The underside of the ears touches the furry parts on the side.

Now we can move on to step three, where we will add fun facial features to give a little more personality to this cute little tiger we’re creating!

Step 3

This tiger’s design seems vague so far, but we will fix that by adding more defined facial features in this third step of the guide.

First, let’s start with something simple by drawing the tiger’s mouth. The mouth is drawn with a single wavy line that curves up the middle.

The reference image shows you how it should look, but it should be straightforward to draw! Next, we’ll draw a small, pointed tooth at the end of each side of the mouth.

Finish the mouth section with a small curved line under the mouth. After drawing, let’s add the eyes.

Each eye is drawn with an oval shape with a small curved line at the base of each. Then you can draw a smaller oval in each eye and a small circle in each of those eyes.

For a little more personality, add a simple brow above each eye with a curved line above each. Finally, we need to add some details in the ears to make them look more realistic.

Draw a wavy line near the middle of each ear and add some small jagged lines to these wavy lines to get some fur detail. That was a lot to do, but now let’s start drawing the tiger’s body.

Step 4

In the previous steps, we created the head and face of this cartoon tiger, and now let’s start drawing the body. This isn’t as complicated as the face and head, but it can still be tricky.

While it can be complicated, you’ll find it easier to break it down into smaller steps. If you want to make it easier for yourself to get the proper perspective, you can first draw the rough shape of the body with a light-colored pencil.

The shoulders start at the base of the head on either side, as shown in our reference image. The shoulders are drawn with slightly wavy lines forming the legs’ outer edges.

Each leg has small oval shapes at the bottom of the tiger’s toes. Then a shorter wavy line extends from the toes to the inside edges of the front legs.

Next, we draw hind legs that extend to each side of the body. Each back leg is drawn as a rounded shape, as shown in the example.

At the base of each back leg, we drew more toes, similar to the toes we made for the front legs. This is enough for the outline of the tiger’s body and legs. In the next step of the guide, we’ll add some finer details to bring this tiger to life!

Step 5

The outline of this cartoon tiger is mainly finished now, and we will finish it along with all the final details in this guide step.

The last element to add to the outline is the tail. In our example, you can see that the tail extends from the tip of the hind leg to the left side of the image.

The tail is a simple, thin, and curved shape, and with this drawing, we have the overall outline complete and can focus on the finer details inside.

Since we just drew the tail, let’s start with the details by drawing the stripes on the tail. These are some simple pointed shapes within the outline of the tail.

We will then draw similar pointed shapes over the rest of the outline, except they’re much more significant in the other areas since we have more room to work with.

These stripes run along the shoulders, back, and front legs. You can see where we placed these stripes in our example image, but feel free to place them in other areas for your design if you wish.

Once those stripes are drawn, you’re done with the details! Before proceeding, you can add more details and ideas to the drawing. For example, you could draw other cartoon animals to emphasize this tiger. Or you can show where this tiger is by adding a background setting.

Step 6

The drawing is done, and we can finish it with some paint. This is an integral part of the design, as a tiger’s colors are distinctive.

As we mentioned in a guide earlier, the dominant colors in a tiger are orange, black, and white. We reflected this in our example as these are the primary colors we used, with a touch of pink for the nose.

Although this is the color palette we used, we used variations of each color to add nuance and variety to the colors.

For example, you’ll see that we used a very dark orange under the head to add some shading.

The underside of the tiger has also been left white for added realism. We chose these colors, and you can replicate them for your design!

Of course, you can choose other shades and variations if you like and don’t have to keep them realistic.

If you like the shades we use, watercolors or colored pencils would produce similar tones.

If you want lighter colors, colored pens or some paint would make the colors much lighter.

You can stick to one medium when adding colors, but don’t be afraid to try some combinations too!

You can use many colors and mediums, which can all help make your drawing more unique.

Your Cartoon Tiger Drawing is Finished!