Alright guys, so I totally got obsessed with drawing lambs lately. Seriously, they’re cute fluffy clouds with legs, right? But man, actually getting one down on paper? Easier said than done. My first tries? Absolute disaster zone. Ended up with weird potato shapes with stick legs. Not cool.
How I Started This Mess
Right, decided enough was enough. I needed a plan. Found this concept of breaking down stuff into simple shapes. Seems obvious now, but back then? My brain was mush. Grabbed my sketchbook, dug out my trusty but slightly chewed HB pencil, and just started doodling basic shapes – ovals, circles, rectangles, whatever.
- Step 1: The Potato Body (Seriously). Just drew a big, kinda tilted oval right in the middle of the page. This was gonna be the fluffy main body chunk. Didn’t sweat making it perfect, just kinda plopped it there.
- Step 2: Attaching a Head Ball. Drew a smaller circle overlapping the top front of the potato-oval. This was the head foundation. Made sure it wasn’t too big or too small – proportion feels weird otherwise.
- Step 3: Leg Sticks? More Like Pillars! Ok, not really pillars. But instead of thin lines, I drew short, slightly angled rectangles dropping down from the body oval. Thicker at the top, tapering a bit. Four of these weirdly-shaped blocks. Front legs slightly shorter maybe, depending on the pose I imagined.
- Step 4: Connecting the Dots (Literally). Time to make it look less like robot parts. Started gently rounding out those sharp corners where shapes joined. Like where head met body, smoothed that curve. Legs? Turned those blocky ends into soft, tapered points for feet. Added a little tufted tail blob at the back.
It started looking… vaguely lamb-like! Encouraging!
Adding the Fluff & Face Features
Here’s where the personality kicks in.
- Step 5: Fluff Attack! Lambs are walking cotton balls. I stopped drawing hard outlines. Instead, started making lots of small, wispy, curved pencil strokes all around the body outline and over the neck/back. Short strokes close together build up that wool texture. It’s messy, but embrace the messy fluff!
- Step 6: Face Time. On the head circle, sketched two simple almond shapes for eyes near the top/middle. Small dark circles inside for pupils, looking slightly sideways maybe. Lower down, a little upside-down ‘V’ for the nose. Tiny lines connecting nose to mouth area? Just a hint. Didn’t overdo it.
- Step 7: Ear Flops. Added two soft leaf shapes or rounded triangles on top of the head. Curved them downwards slightly at the tips.
Playing Around & Other Methods
Once I had that basic ‘standing side-view lamb’ kinda working, I got brave. Tried the other ideas:
- Lamb Chibi: Huge head, tiny body, super big eyes. Adorably ridiculous.
- Sleeping Curl: Drew the body as one big curled-up fuzzy oval shape, just adding a hidden head and feet poking out.
- Simple Silhouette: Filled in the whole body shape solid black (or heavily shaded), just focusing on that clean, recognizable outline against a white background. Surprisingly effective!
Seriously, just playing with these different starting points makes a huge difference. Don’t try the sleeping one first like I did, it was confusing. Start with the basic shapes side-view, that Method 1? Solid foundation. My scratch paper looked insane, filled with blobby shapes and frantic fluff marks. But eventually? It actually started making sense.
Bottom line? Don’t expect perfection right away. Grab any paper, a pencil, start with simple shapes, build up slowly, and mess around with the fluff. You’ll get surprised how a few shapes turn into something cute. Give it a shot!
