How to draw a santa claus clipart

Learn how to create a beautiful Santa Claus clipart ready to celebrate Christmas while holding a bag filled with gifts. Don't be fooled by the complexity of this character. Using mostly straight and curved lines, most body parts like the head and the body are made from basic shapes like rectangles. A few shadows and highlights are added to give more depth to the character. Ready to draw? Cool! Let's create Santa now! :)

step 1 - adding the face and the body

The facial expression of Santa is relatively neural in this illustration. In fact, the mouth is hidden behind the beard. You can draw the eyes and the pupils using circles. Don't forget to draw a long thin nose. The mustache and the beard are done using curved lines. Next, create the body, the arms and the legs as shown below. 

step 2 - more details to end up with a recognizable character

The hat is done using more curved lines. Some hair is added near the visible ear. The bag is created from a very long curved line and the tip of the bag is done using small straight lines. Excellent! We are almost done drawing this cool version of a Santa Claus clipart! :)

step 3 - drawing a large belt and a few more lines

The belt is done using two large squares. More vertical and horizontal lines are used to create the belt. You can add a small line on the shirt, one above the feet and a few more curved lines on the bag. Great! It's not time to apply some colors and make this illustration visually more appealing.

step 4 - adding some red ... lots of red!

The hat, the shirt and the pants of Santa are colored in red. The hat is filled with some light gray colors. A darker gray color is used for the beard, the shoes, the eyebrows and the belt. The pupils are blue while the middle of the belt is yellow. Finally, a dark green color is used for the bag.

step 5 - color gradients to give some volume

Yes, adding color gradients to the character is one simple technique to create more depth inside this illustration. As you can see below, the bottom of the hat  is slightly darker while the top is much brighter. Use the same recipe on all shapes as shown in the sample below.

step 6 - Shadows to make the whole image more realistic

Shadows drawn manually are added all over the character to create more depth and volume. Each shape is filled with a color similar to the one found behind (except darker) and some transparency is used to create a subtle effect. Of course, all yellow lines below were only added to help you locate all new elements.

step 7 - highlights to go one step further

Highlights (or reflections) are brighter shapes added to the character to give an extra layer of credibility to the drawing. All these new shapes are white, but the opacity was altered to create a very subtle result on all body parts of this Santa Claus clipart. You can see the final result once all yellow outlines are removed in the next step.

A fun Santa Claus clipart done in just seven easy steps!

This is the final result once all steps are completed. I hope you had fun creating this cartoon character. Remember that all tips displayed in this lesson can be applied to all the characters you love. Don't hesitate to sketch more Santa Claus, to create different postures, different facial expressions and to play with colors. Have fun! :)

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