How to Draw Disney Animals – Blancer.com Tutorials and projects

Final product image — What You’ll Be Creating

I’ve always loved Disney animals—expressive and human-like, yet so similar to their realistic counterparts. Their simplicity is deceptive, though—as I kid I had a hard time drawing them correctly. I didn’t know back then that there are special rules you need to follow to draw authentic Disney animals.

If you want to learn how to draw animals in a Disney style, in this tutorial I will show you all the basics. You’ll learn how the head and body are constructed, and how to draw the face in various views step by step. We’ll take a closer look at cats, dogs, and horses, but these rules also apply to bears, deer, and even birds. With these rules you’ll be able to draw real Disney characters and create your own.

Before you start, I recommend you take a look at the first tutorial from this series, How to Draw Disney Characters.

1. The Anatomy of Disney Animals

Although animals can be so different, they all can be drawn in a Disney style that makes them similar. How is this possible? It’s about simplifying all the elements of the head in the same way:

Cranium
Muzzle
Chin
Eye socket
Eyeball
Nose
Cheeks
Ears

Let’s start with the cranium. It’s always drawn as a sphere, regardless of the shape of the animal’s head.

The upper jaw/upper half of the muzzle is an ellipsoid, smaller than the sphere. Its size, shape, and place of attachment can be modified for various purposes:

Most animals will have these two shapes attached to each other, but for ungulates (hoofed animals) there may be a space between them to create a longer muzzle.
The lower and smaller the ellipsoid is, the cuter/younger the animal looks. Placing it at 1/2 of the cranium is the safest bet.
The length of the ellipsoid, its shape and its size should be adjusted to the characteristics of the species.

The next important measures are the eye socket and the eyeball. This again depends on the effect you want to achieve, as well as the look of the species, but the safest way is to put the eye right on the middle line of the sphere, and the eye socket on the middle line of this half. The eyeball may be placed within 2/3 of the eye socket. Females usually have bigger eyes, with more prominent eyelashes and thinner eyebrows.

The final shape of the eye is achieved by adding the eyelids. You can learn all about drawing eyes and adding expressions to them in the previous tutorial of this series.

The nose can connect to the cranium in various ways—it can, for example, make a step, or it can merge into it gently.

The front of the mouth can usually be derived by drawing lines down the nose.

The spherical shape of the cranium is sometimes enough to create the shape of the head, but sometimes you need to modify it. The cheeks can help you here.

The cheeks must be merged with the shape of the head. Sometimes they change the whole shape of the cranium.

The ears are usually very simple, attached to the back of the head.

Finally, we can draw the lower jaw. It’s good to draw the jaws separately, because it gives us the freedom to draw them open or closed. Draw the chin as an ellipsoid right under the upper one, and then connect it to the head or the neck—depending on the effect you want to achieve.

Open mouth can be drawn easily when you think in forms—just keep the axis of rotation parallel to the line over the eyes.

Because Disney animals can often speak, their mouth must be very human-like—you can draw normal lips on the front of the muzzle, and then adjust them to its shape until it looks convincing.

2. How to Draw Disney Cats

How to Draw a Disney Cat’s Body

To draw any animal’s body, you need to know its structure and form. When drawing the structure, you define the proportions and pose by reducing the body to a “skeleton” like this. The proportions of a cat’s body depend on the species. Below, you can see the structure of a Disney lion. Characteristically, the lower half of its body is the same height or shorter than the upper half.

When you have the structure, you can add the form. The elements of the body are identical for most animals—only their shape and size must be adjusted to the species.

Once you know this basic cat body, you can modify it to create other species. There’s not one correct way of drawing every species—you simply need to find what is characteristic for a certain type of cat, and then exaggerate it in your structure and form.

How to Draw a Disney Cat’s Paws

Step 1

Start with simple “pony hooves”. Remember about direction and perspective.

Step 2

Add this simple shape in the front. Imagine it in 3D to create a proper view.

Step 3

Divide the shape into halves. In the side view, it’s good to shift this middle line to the side, to create a more interesting and less confusing view.

Step 4

Add an ellipsoid for each toe—smaller on the sides.

Step 5

Find the level defined by the top of the toes.

Step 6

Outline the paws. You can outline whole toes, or just a part of them—there’s no definite rule for this.

Step 7

The toes are often colored differently, so you can cut them visually from the rest of the paw.

How to Draw a Disney Cat’s Head

Obviously, Disney cats have various proportions of their heads, because they don’t look the same. Somehow, though, they do look similar—it’s because they share some elements, even though their shape is modified. Here are a few examples—can you see what all these heads have in common? This is what makes them cat-like.

Before you draw a Disney cat, you need to prepare such a set of proportions—either create your own or analyze screenshots of an actual movie to find the proportions of the real character. Once you have the proportions, you can draw the character in any pose and view. Let me show you how!