How to draw a cartoon lemur

Drawing a cartoon lemur can be a fun experience if you wish to work on an animal with unique features. Indeed, this creature is definitely filled with cool patterns, awkward body parts and a strange posture. In this lesson, I will show you how to create a version of a lemur that is visually appealing, but a little bit complex to achieved. Ready? Let's proceed with the first step now ...

adding a few basic shapes to form a template

First, we need to draw a few basic shapes to work on the posture and proportions. You can start by drawing a circle to illustrate the head and a rectangle to form the neck. Then, draw a large body, two long feet and two short arms. The tail is done using a simple curved line. Good work! Let's use these shapes to draw the character.

using curved lines to draw the cartoon lemur

It's now time to draw the main body parts of the animal using curved lines. As you can see below, you can draw the head, body and legs using short pointed lines. Some hair are visible on top of the head, near the cheeks, on the neck and on the back of the lemur. Don't forget to draw a long tail made from curved lines.

Working inside the head

Inside the head of the animal, you can draw both eyes and pupils using perfect circles. The mouth is made from a long curved line. The nose is created from another short line. You can also add a few short lines inside both legs.

Adding more details to create the identity of the character

More patches are needed inside this illustration to make sure the lemur looks like ... a lemur! You can start by adding patches inside the ears and on top of the head. Short oval shapes are also drawn around both eyes.

Inside the nose, you can draw two small dots. Another patch is created around the mouth. A short line is added below the neck to connect this one with the arm. Finally, rectangular shapes are sketch inside the tail to form stripes.

adding plain colors

This cartoon lemur is mostly filled with gray colors. A few elements like the patches around the eyes, the nose and the stripes on the tail are black. For now, the tail of the creature can be white. Patches inside the ears, on top of the head and around the mouth are darker.

working with gradient colors

A simple technique to create more depth inside a drawing consists of adding gradient colors. Adding two versions of the same color inside a shape can create more volume quickly and easily. This cartoon lemur looks good, but it can be better if we can add more shadows and reflections using new shapes.

Drawing cool reflections on the lemur

Below, you can see a bunch of new shapes created with a blue outline (this one is temporary). All these new elements are colored in white and are partially transparent. This technique is perfect to create more volume by adding some highlights on dark areas.

black shadows are also important

Using the same logic, a few additional shapes (with red outlines) are added in this illustration. This time, all new shapes are colored in black, but are also partially transparent. Adding both new shadows and reflections is definitely a good idea to give more volume to this cute character.

Good work! Time to draw more animals!

Below, you can see the final result once all digital effects are added. It's not an easy subject to work with, but if you are following are steps above carefully, achieving a similar result is certainly feasible.

Below, you can see all nine steps required to illustrate this lemur properly. I hope you had fun working with this cartoon character and don't hesitate to try more images from the same series here. Have fun learning how to draw these cool illustrations and don't forget to practice as often as possible.

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