How to draw a skull with a pencil step-by-step drawing tutorial

In today's drawing tutorial, we will learn how to draw a skull with a pencil. This can be a perfect drawing for Halloween but can also be used for more academic drawing to understand better the bones and how they impact the drawing of the human face.

Step 1. Outline the shape of the skull drawing.

In the first step of our skull drawing tutorial, we want to draw an egg-like shape to outline the skull shape. Also, add the crossing lines to show the middle of the skull drawing.

Step 2. Outline the eyes and nose holes on the skull drawing.

In step two, we need to outline the holes for the eyes and nose. As you can see, to draw the eye holes for our skull, we use the middle line from the previous step and add a line above it that will denote the upper part of the eyes. Then, we draw a mouth line and the lines to show the jaw.

Step 3. Draw the skull's eye holes in more detail. Draw the skull in more detail.

In this step, we draw the skull parts in more detail. As you can see, we draw the holes for the eyes and nose in more detail. We also draw the lines separating the frontal and parietal bones (the ones on the sides of the skull). We also draw the zygomatic bones in more detail (the ones sticking out to the sides below the eyes).

Step 4. Draw the skull's teeth.

As you might have noticed, in the previous step, we added two additional lines, one above and one below the mouth line. In this step, we draw the skull's teeth.

Step 5. Finesse your lines, and start shading the parts of the skull.

Now that you have drawn your skull, you want to go over it and finesse your lines, making them harder and more visible. Then, start hatching for the darker skull parts: inside the holes and on the right. For our skull drawing tutorial, we imagine a light source on the top left of the skull. Thus, the darker areas are in the top left parts of the holes and the right part of the skull.

Step 6. Continue shading parts of the skull. Finalize the skull drawing.

In the last step of our skull drawing tutorial, continue to shade inside the eye and nose holes and on the left part of the skull to finish our skull drawing.

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