Caroline
Whales are some of the most incredible animals on the planet, with a wide variety of species like the blue whale, beluga, and humpback whale capturing the imagination of people everywhere.
Whether you’re drawing a cute or realistic whale, their majestic size and graceful movements make them fascinating to illustrate.
In this step-by-step guide, you’ll learn how to easily draw a whale, from its massive body to the intricate details like its tail.
Perfect for kids and beginners, this guide will help you create a whale that’s both fun and easy to draw!
Watch How to Draw a Whale Step by Step
How to Draw A Whale – Let’s get Started!
Step 1
To kick off this guide on how to draw a whale, we shall begin with a simple line that will form the back of the whale. It will be quite a curvy line, as you can see in the reference image.
You can see in the following images how this line is going to fit into the rest of the picture.
Once that line is done, it’s on to step 2!
Step 2 – Now, draw the face and tail of the whale
We will begin to build on the whale drawing in this next step. Using the line from step 1, use a round, curved line on the left-hand side to create the head of the whale.
Then, on the right-hand side, you can draw the forked tail of the whale.
Because of the angle that the whale will be at, the tail will be quite small compared to the rest of the body, which will show some perspective.
Step 3 – Next, draw the belly and flippers of the whale
Building on from what you drew in the previous steps, you can use another curved line with a sharp point near the belly of the whale to create a flipper for it.
Once you have the flipper drawn, you can then draw a line from it to the tail to create a belly for your whale drawing.
Before moving on to the next step, be sure to draw another line to create a large mouth for your whale.
Step 4 – Draw an eye and another flipper
In this part of our guide on how to draw a whale, you can draw an eye for the whale. Whales have relatively small eyes compared to the rest of their bodies.
The eye can be drawn with a small circle that has a black dot inside of it.
Once you have the eye, you can close off this step by drawing one more flipper next to the one that you drew previously.
Because this second flipper is further away, you can make it a bit smaller than the first one.
Step 5 – Start adding some details to your whale drawing
We will start to add some final details in the next few steps of this guide.
First, using the reference picture as a guide, you can draw some thin lines into the area below the face and heading down to the flippers.
These small lines will give this area, called the ventral pleats, have a wrinkly appearance.
Next, you can draw some lines onto the face and flippers for even more details to your whale.
Step 6 – Finish off the drawing with some final details
We’re almost at the final step of this guide on how to draw a whale! Before the last step, we shall add some final details to the drawing.
This is a step where we will show you some details that you can add, but it’s also one where you can really get creative and add some details of your own!
For our drawing, we added some small, thin, lines on the tail and body of the whale to give it a more textured, wrinkly look.
With those details added, now you can think up some of your own to add! You have many options to get really creative with it!
For example, you could draw some extra marine life around the whale, such as fish, coral, seaweed or anything else you can think of!
Maybe you could draw the surface of the ocean above the whale and have a boat sailing above.
That would be a great way to illustrate the size of your whale. Which extra details can you think of to add to your whale drawing?
Step 7 – Finish off your whale drawing with some color
That brings us to the final step of this guide on how to draw a hale, and for this one you can let loose and have lots of fun being creative!
We showed you just one of many different ways that you can color your own whale drawing, but you should feel free to use whichever colors you love!
Even if you want a more realistic whale, they come in so many different species and color schemes
that you would have a lot of options to color in your whale. You could even look up some pictures of real whales on the internet as inspiration!
If you wanted a more stylistic image, however, you could use any of your favorite amazing colors to finish off your whale.
Once you’ve decided on the colors, the only thing left is to pick your art medium of choice.
I would use some watercolor paints for a softer look to this image, but there is definitely no right or wrong way to color in! You should use any art medium you want to create an amazing image.
5 Tips To Make Your Whale Drawing Even Better!
Take a deep dive as we show you how to make your whale drawing even better!
Whales are one of many amazing ocean creatures that you can find. You could add some of these creatures to this whale sketch to make it even better!
You could draw some more whales or maybe add some sharks, dolphins or orcas. These are just a few ocean creatures you could add, but what other ones could you add to the image?
Adding some sea creatures is one way to make this whale drawing better, but you could also add more of a background. The obvious choice would be a sea setting, but there are ways to make it interesting.
For instance, you could draw the whale near the ocean bed so that you could include all kinds of fun details.
We created a cartoony variant of this animal for our drawing of a whale, but you could change the style if you like. For example, you could use some pictures of a real whale to make this drawing more realistic.
Using a photo of a whale would help you to get the proportions of the fins, tail and other details. There are other styles you could use for this whale as well, so be sure to let your creativity flow!
Another way to make your whale sketch even better is by using colors creatively. We showed you one way you could color this whale, but there are so many ways to go about it!
You could stick to realistic colors, but you should also feel free to use any creative colors you like to set it apart!
The colors you choose are just one aspect that you can consider for this drawing. The art mediums that you use can also make a huge difference.
You could use various paint mediums with different brushes or maybe some mediums like colored pens and markers.
You can really find whatever you have lying around and there will be some interesting ways that you can incorporate them!
Your Whale Drawing is Complete!
Hopefully you had a lot of fun working through this step-by-step guide on how to draw a whale alongside us!
We aimed to make this guide both fun and easy to use, so we hope you had a great time while realizing that drawing a whale is easier than you might think once you know what to do!
Now it’s up to you to show us what you can do with some extra details, elements, colors and art mediums. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!
We have so much more fun in store for you on our website, so make sure to check in to our website often to never miss the new guides that we upload frequently.
Lastly, we would love to see your amazing whale drawing, so we hope you will share it on our Facebook and Pinterest pages for us to enjoy!
Here Is A Cute Cartoon Whale Drawing To Inspire You!
Whales are the gentle giants of the sea, and now you get to create a whale friend of your own! This cute whale drawing for kids will give you some inspiration as you work on your own drawing.
You have seen the steps to creating this drawing, but the more inspiration, the better!
This drawing by our artist Freddy gives you a good look at this creature, and you can admire all of the small details.
He also created a wonderful undersea setting beneath the whale, and this looks amazing. It really adds to the scene, and you could draw even more for this aspect of the drawing.
If you want to, then you could even draw some more sea creatures into your cute whale sketch. It’s all up to you, so feel free to create your very own undersea adventure!
