How to Draw A Cartoon Museum

Before creating an artwork, why not draw a cartoon museum filled with fun elements and great visual effects. Indeed, using mostly rectangles and straight lines, I will show you how to create a fun museum filled with shadows, highlights and simple shapes. 

Step 1

First, you can draw by sketching the museum using white shapes. For this tutorial, I have selected a simple template featuring mostly rectangles. As you can see, there are no complex shapes, textures or patterns in this cartoon illustration.

Step 2

Next, add some plain colors on all elements of the illustration. Windows are filled with a bright blue color. All other shapes are mostly filled with a subtle beige/light brown color. 

Step 3

When you are finished, you can select the gradient fill tool and add some depth to the museum. To do so, simple add a second color to each shape (usually a darker version of the color already present). You can look at the image below if you need guidelines. 

Step 4

Continue adding some elements to this illustration by drawing lines on the building. Make sure that these lines are filled with a light brown color (they are currently shown in pink below to help you locate all lines that need to be added).

Step 5

Nice work! This is the result so far. In the following steps, I will show you how to add shadow and highlights to create a more enjoyable museum using only simple shapes. 

Step 6

Draw additional shapes on the building as shown below. These new elements must be filled with a dark color and partially transparent to end up with a subtle result. 

Step 7

More shadows must be drawn on this museum using the same technique as the one described in the previous step. You can see all shapes needed in the image below. 

Step 8

Finally, you can draw white shapes on the windows and partially hide these new elements to create highlights. 

The result? A nice cartoon museum with great effects!

Nice work! The result is a fun illustration of a museum done in just eight easy steps. Of course, you can always try to draw a more complex building using a similar technique. You can also draw more textures, more patterns, more statues or anything else you have in mind to come up with something extremely exciting! Enjoy! :)

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