How to Draw A Cartoon Football Player ready to play

This simple tutorial will help you learn how to draw a cartoon football player that is big, mean and ready to do anything to win the game. To play football, you either need to be big and hard to move or strong, fast and capable of running through the entire field without getting hit. Unfortunately, in my case, I should stick with hockey or baseball!

This drawing lesson is obviously focusing on a big and large player (you know, the one with the defensive team). To draw this character accurately, you need to draw large shapes and make sure that your player will be intimidating enough to scare the hell out of the other players.

adding basic shapes to create a template

Before drawing the character itself, it can be a good idea to use basic shapes to form a template. This one will be used to polish the posture and the proportions of the subject. First, draw the helmet using two large rectangles. Small curved lines are added to represent the eyes.

Working on the upper part of the body

Next, work on the upper part of the body using a large rectangle. This one is used for the shoulders. Both arms are made from a series of small oval shapes and circles. Finally, sketch the waist using two more irregular shapes.

sketching the legs and feet

More small rectangles are needed to illustrate the legs and feet of the cartoon football player. To create a fun character that looks intimidating, you can sketch small legs as shown below. Don't forget to represent the knees, the shoes and the hips.

polishing the shapes to create a nice silhouette

It's now time to make sure that the character is visually accurate. Modify all shapes as needed to end up with perfect proportions and a realistic posture. Let's work on the silhouette of the subject using long curved lines.

First, you can draw the top of the helmet using a long curved line. The upper body is also large and smooth. Complete this step by drawing nice arms, wrists and hands.

drawing small and beautiful legs

The lower part of the body is also created with long curved lines. Of course, legs are a little bit too small for the size of the character. Since it's a cartoon version of a football player, then we can cheat and draw smaller legs and feet.

working on the lower part of the helmet

Draw the grid of the helmet using several small straight lines. You can see the pattern used below. Once you are done with this piece of equipment, you can draw small pupils inside the eyes. Excellent work! This lesson on how to draw a cartoon football player is almost over. :)

adding small details on the illustration

You can also add several small lines on the subject to complete this part of the lesson. First, draw a stripe on top of the helmet. Next, sketch small lines inside the shoes. Finally, give more strength to the character by drawing more lines inside the arms, the shirt, the legs and the chest.

This cartoon football player needs color!

Let's bring this cartoon character to life by adding bright colors. For this version, you can use green and yellow colors. I have used the green color for the shirt, the shoes and the stripe on the helmet. Yellow colors are used inside the shorts and the helmet. The socks are black.

let's play with gradients!

If you have access to a digital application, you can also add gradients to create more depth and volume inside the illustration. See how parts like the shorts and the helmet are darker near the bottom and brighter on top?

Great work! Below, you can see all steps required to draw this fun character properly. Don't hesitate to use this fun illustration as a reference.

Now that we are done illustrating this huge player, feel free to sketch more athletes using the lessons located below. These tutorials are filled with great tips and techniques that can be used in all your work. Have fun drawing and remember to practice as often as possible. :)