How to Draw a Duckling – A Cute Duckling Drawing

Let’s start our duckling drawing by laying out the base body shapes.

Draw a circle for the head. Next, add the face cross – this will help us place the duckling’s face soon.

The top-down curve shows which direction the duckling is looking – this one looks to the right. The left-to-right curve is how up or down the face is facing – this one is pretty much level.

Next, draw the duckling’s body. We are aiming for a cartoony look with a large head, so the body’s overall size is about the same as the head.

It is made of a sort of back-leaning rectangle crossed with a half-egg shape. The bottom is almost flat, while the left side is curved out more. The top and right sides blend into a smooth single curve.

Sketch the duckling’s beak shape next.

We start by adding another guideline – a centreline for the beak. It starts from the center of the face cross and curves out and down.

Then, draw an oval shape centered around the beak line. Open it up at the top, curving back to connect to the face line.

Then draw the top of the duckling’s beak.

It is another fancy curve that follows the flat face-cross line with a small bump at the centerline.

It then curves down in rounded corners to meet with the beak we have drawn.

Next, we draw the duckling’s mouth or the lower “jaw” of the beak.

Start with the bottom curve – that one is a “U” shape from the left corner of the beak top to roughly where the beak crosses the head outline.

Then, add the two inner lines. The longer one follows the “jaw” shape and will be the outer “lip” line. The last short line inside the mouth is for the “lip” from the inside of the mouth.

Finally, add two ovals to the top of the beak for the nostrils.

It is time to give our duckling some eyes.

These are circles sitting on the top of the face line. The left eye is a touch larger, almost full circle, touching on the vertical centreline. The right eye is just a three-quarter circle.

Then, add the inner “pupil” half-circles. Our duckling is looking left, but you can place them towards the center or the right side of the eyes as well.

Next, the cheek is a line starting on the face line next to the beak and curving down. Join the end with almost a flat line back to the head outline.

Let’s draw some “hair” feathers next. The front fringe is made of three “V” triangles curving slightly down. Then draw the back hairdo – two points up and two points down.

Also, let’s connect the head to the body with some neck next. Draw the neck just as two downlines from the head circle to the body chest – about two-thirds up the body.

Now let’s give our duckling some wings and the tail.

Start with the front wing. It is a teardrop shape, slightly tilted to the left and placed about halfway between the neck and the back body line.

The other wing is the same shape but hiding behind the body. It ends up being just two lines poking out in front of the body.

Finally, the tail is again the same shape, just a touch larger. It is the same two lines hiding behind the back of the body, starting from the top-left body corner down to the body baseline.

With the sketch done, it is time to outline and improve on our duckling drawing.

Start by outlining the beak and “mouth”. We have done the hard work, so these are just direct outline of the sketch.

Also, fill in the nostrils in black.

Next, draw the eyes. When coloring in the pupils, leave a little moon-shaped white at the top for the reflection in the eyes.

As the first improvement to sketch, add two eyebrows above the eyes – these are wide-open, upside-down “V” lines.

Next, outline the check. Follow the bottom line with some jagged lines made from little “V” shapes to suggest some ruffed-up cheek feathers.

Next up, draw the head and the “hair” feathers outline.

Again, we are mostly following the outer sketch lines. Leave a gap in the head outline where the hairdo is. Also, we have added a couple of zig-zags under the hairdo to give the back of the head some “hair” feathers.

With the head finished, draw the neck from the outline.

It is time to outline the duckling’s body.

Again, follow the sketch lines to outline the top of the body. Break the line for the neck and stop about halfway down the body at the back.

Then, outline the tail, adding two upside-down “V” feathers at the tip.

Leave out the bottom body line – we have a plan for that one later.

Complete the duckling drawing by outlining the wings.

Again, the small improvement is to add some feathers with zig-zag “V” lines at the tip of both wings.

That is pretty much it – that is how to draw a duckling.

Now, here is the final improvement. Instead of our duckling floating in empty space, let’s draw it some puddle of water to splash in.

First, draw some zig-zags along the bottom body line (I told you we would fix it up).

Then add squiggly lines that go around the duckling in circles to suggest some more of the waves on the water.

And here is the result of our “how to draw a duckling” tutorial in all its glory after we have erased all sketch lines – a pretty happy, cheerful and cheeky cartoony duckling drawing.

The last step to finish our duckling drawing is to color it in.

The duckling is bright yellow with an orange beak. To give the drawing some volume, we have used some darker yellow and light brown for shading and also left out some white highlights.

The water is nice blue for contrast, again with some white highlights for the waves left out. Oh, and the reeds and grass are sketched in there just for fun.

And that’s it – now you know how to draw a duckling.