Caroline
A Nightmare Before Christmas has become one of the most beloved animated films of all time, despite the fact that it has quite a unique and subversive premise!
It is a film that both fans of Christmas and Halloween can come together and enjoy, and it follows the story of Jack Skellington and Sally among many unique characters.
We have a special treat for fans that would like to learn how to draw Nightmare Before Christmas in this guide!
If you are one of those fans, then you’ll want to read all the way through this guide.
We hope you have a great time working on this fantastic step-by-step guide on how to draw Nightmare Before Christmas!
How to Draw Nightmare Before Christmas – Let’s Get Started!
Step 1
To kick off this guide on how to draw Nightmare Before Christmas, we will start with one of the characters we mentioned earlier in the guide: Sally!
The characters in the film have a very distinctive look to them that fits nicely in the style of the producer of the movie, Tim Burton.
With this style, characters will usually have really big eyes with small mouths, and Sally is no exception. You can start off with a curved line for the outline of her face.
Then, use some big, rounded shapes for her eyes and then draw some small dots for her pupils. You can also add some small lines on top for her eyelashes.
Then, we will be adding some stitches to show off her scarecrow-like nature. You can draw some lines for her mouth that have several smaller vertical lines going along it.
You can draw her small, smiling mouth on the center of this line and add more stitching near her eye.
Step 2 – Next, draw her hair and body
In this part of your Nightmare Before Christmas drawing, we will be drawing the rest of Sally’s hair and body.
Her hair flows down quite straight from her head, and we will be adding lots of line detail to it to give it the appearance of real hair.
Then, using the reference image, you can then create the rest of her arms and body along with the dress that she is wearing. Then it’s on to step 3, so let’s move on!
Step 3 – Draw the outline details for the drawing
There will be a cool border with some background details that we will be working on for this guide on how to draw Nightmare Before Christmas.
This border will help to represent the dark and quirky tone of the movie perfectly! First, start by drawing a curved line from Sally’s face down to the bottom of her hair.
We will be making it look like there is a circle behind them, so try to make it as circular as possible. Then, add some wavy horizontal lines coming from this circle, and then draw some twisty detailing coming from the lines as well to give it an almost vine-like look!
For an extra fun touch, we will be adding Jack Skellington’s pet ghost dog, Zero, to the border. You can draw him in the forefront of the image for a fun base for Jack and Sally.
Step 4 – Now, draw Jack into the picture
You’ve been doing a great job on this Nightmare Before Christmas drawing so far, so now it’s time to add the man himself: Jack Skellington!
As his name implies, Jack is a skeleton, but he will still be drawn with the same style we spoke about earlier.
That means giving him some big eye sockets, and you can draw his mouth as a long line with smaller lines going horizontally through it.
Then, draw his rounded head shape before extending his neck down. He will then have an extravagant collar that fans out from a central broach at his neck, and you can finish off the rest of the suit he is wearing.
Finally, you can draw the other half of the circle behind them on his side, and be sure to extend the same twisty lines that you did before.
Step 5 – Finish off the details for your Nightmare Before Christmas drawing
This step of your Nightmare Before Christmas drawing will be all about adding some final touches to the picture before you color it in!
We will mainly be adding some extra details to Sally’s body to make her look even more as she does in the film, but you can also add more lines to the circular background as well.
Then you have finished the drawing and are ready for the final step! Before you move on, be sure to add any extra details of your own that you may like.
Perhaps you could draw the title of the film below them to turn this into an awesome Nightmare Before Christmas poster!
Step 6 – Finish off your drawing with some color
Now it’s time to finish off your incredible Nightmare Before Christmas drawing with some amazing colors!
In our reference image, we showed you the colors for the characters as they appear in the film.
Jack has a more muted grey color scheme, while Sally has red hair with green skin along with blue and yellow clothing.
We then used some yellow for the circular background, but you should feel free to change up any of the colors as you like!
We can’t wait to see what colors and art mediums you choose for this picture!
Bonus: Try Out These Ideas To Make Your Drawing Even More Spook-Tacular!
You have completed this beautiful Nightmare Before Christmas drawing, and it looks absolutely stunning! If you’re at this stage but haven’t finished because you’re struggling, then be sure to read the next section.
That next section will be there to help you make this drawing easier if you’re having a hard time, but for now we wanted to focus on some fun tips to make this drawing even better.
One way we think you could make this drawing even more stunning would be to turn it into a decoration. If you draw it on some cardboard and then cut it out, you can then hang it from some string.
Then it can hang from the ceiling for a fun decoration! Moving back to the drawing itself, it would be fun to add some background elements to the image.
We drew a wonderfully simple and elegant border around the characters, but you could make the background more complex. There are so many wondrous locations and places in the film.
Any of these locations would be perfect to add to the background of your picture! Or, maybe you would like to keep focusing on the viny border around the characters.
You could add some more twists and turns to this border or add any other details you would like. Incorporating objects, characters and other elements from the film would also be awesome.
Adding text would be another fun way to show your love for the movie. It could be some favorite quotes from the film or perhaps the names of the characters.
Now that you have some ideas, what do you think you will do to add to this Nightmare Before Christmas drawing?
3 More tips to make your Nightmare Before Christmas drawing easy!
Make this easy to draw Nightmare Before Christmas design even easier with these tips
The characters in Nightmare Before Christmas are very detailed, and that can make them harder to draw. We went with that same level of detail for this Nightmare Before Christmas drawing, but you could simplify them a bit.
For instance, you could go with a simpler, even more cartoony style for the characters. You could do this by simplifying a lot of the line details.
Doing this would give the drawing a more stylized look, but it would still look amazing in its own right! You could also simplify the pattern around them to make it easier.
If you want to stick with the style of this drawing of Nightmare Before Christmas, you can use other sources to help you. One of the best ways to do this would be to actually put the film on!
Then, you can freeze the movie at certain moments where we get a good look at Jack or Sally. Using the film will help even more with achieving the details of their characters.
If you don’t have the movie handy, you could also look up pictures of the characters online to use as a reference. Using these references in conjunction with this guide can help a lot with getting the details right!
Our final suggestion for this Nightmare Before Christmas sketch is to create a different background. We love the pattern surrounding Jack and Sally, but it can be quite tricky to draw!
There is a way to make it easier for yourself while also creating a more personalized version of this image. You could remove the pattern entirely and instead create a background setting for them.
This may sound even more difficult, but the background could be done in a really fun and simple design! It would also be another instance where you could use the film itself in order to recreate one of the iconic settings.
Or, you could simply use some solid colors or patterns instead!
Your Nightmare Before Christmas Drawing is Complete!
We hope that this guide on how to draw A Nightmare Before Christmas made this drawing fun, easy and not at all spooky to take on!
There were lots of details to draw in this picture, so we aimed to break it down into smaller, more manageable steps for you to take on. Don’t forget that you can add your own details, elements, colors and art mediums that you may like!
When you’re ready for the next drawing challenge, you can check out our website! We have tons of guides covering anything from more awesome movie characters to common objects and animals.
We upload new guides often as well, so please do visit often!
Once your Nightmare Before Christmas drawing is complete, we would love to share in the spooky fun! You can share your artwork on our Facebook and Pinterest pages for us to enjoy.
Here Is A Nightmare Before Christmas Drawing To Inspire You!
The Nightmare Before Christmas is a classic, offbeat animated film that celebrates both Christmas and Halloween.
There are so many fans of the film that love to create artwork featuring the iconic characters from the film.
We had our artist Freddy create this Nightmare Before Christmas drawing for kids to help any fans of the film.
This drawing features Jack Skellington, the main character of the film. Freddy drew him in a stylized form that is different from the film, but it still manages to capture the spirit of the character.
He also created a wonderful background that calls to mind the vistas from the film. You could add even more to this background if you wanted to create a specific scene or moment from the film.
Adding more characters would also be an awesome way to celebrate the film!
