How to Draw A Cartoon Ruler with a unique look

Sketching a cartoon ruler can be a boring thing to do. Let's face it, it's not the most exciting object to illustrate. Let's change that by adding a personality to our creation. Yes, let's add arms and large eyes to the ruler using simple basic shapes.

Rulers are important for a wide variety of things. Of course, our first encounter with this object often occurs in school. Architects, artists and construction workers are also using this tool on a daily basis (although most of the time it's now something we do virtually, not always in reality).

Let's see how we can create this simple object using a few basic steps ...

adding the main silhouette first ...

You can start this simple lesson by drawing a rectangle to form the silhouette of the subject. This new shape must be tall and thin. Remember that this ruler with be gifted with tiny arms on both sides, so it's important to leave some room so that you can add those features later in the tutorial.

sketching large eyes using oval shapes

Next, you can sketch large eyes on the character using simple oval shapes. Eyes are located just above the middle part of the illustration. In this case, you can use two different sizes for the eyes. It's a good tip if you want to illustrate a weirder or crazier character.

it's time to draw arms and pupils!

Inside the eyes, sketch simple pupils using thick dots. This time, it's important to use shapes that are similar in size. On both sides of the subject, you can start building the arms. Let's use basic shapes for now. Each arm is made from three rectangles. The smaller one is used to illustrate the hand.

polishing the arms and adding a scale

You can now polish the arms of the cartoon ruler using smooth curved lines. Elbows can be pointed and fingers are not visible from this point of view. On the right side of the object, add simple lines to create a scale.

adding basic colors

It's time to bring this adorable character to life. Since rulers are mostly made of plastic or wood, you can use any color you can think of. Indeed, rulers can be red, blue, pink, transparent or opaque. Possibilities are almost endless.

For this lesson, a simple beige color was added to the character. This color is used on the main shape as well as inside both arms. Both eyes can be white. For the pupils, a dark gray color can be nice.

working with gradients

One last thing we can do to add more depth and volume is add gradients to the character. As you can see below, the left side of the subject is now darker than the right side. Inside the arms, you can see that the bottom part is darker.

Great! I hope you had fun creating this cute cartoon ruler. Don't hesitate to unleash your creativity and come up with new versions of the illustration. Now that we are done working with this cool object, you can try more fun lessons based on the wonderful world of education below. Enjoy! :)