How to draw a beaver with this how-to video and step-by-step drawing instructions. Easy animals to draw for beginners and kids.
Please see the drawing tutorial in the video below
You can refer to the simple step-by-step drawing guide below
Step 1
Let’s start with a basic sketch
These busy little creatures can always be found riverside building their lodges, dams and canals. So let’s get busy and start drawing a cartoon beaver by sketching the basic lines.
First, draw the chubby cheeks, followed by the top of the head. For the body, draw a wide “U” shape. It might not look much like a beaver, but once we add a few more details, you’ll soon be making an impression with our awesome illustration!.
Step 2
Beaver Tail – Add more elements to the drawing
Our ‘wood’, can you believe it? Our cartoon beaver is ready for more details! Let’s do this by adding the all-important tail – make it nice and wide and paddle-shaped, as it’s very useful for our wildlife swimmers. on the river or transporting construction materials!
Next, add some ears to the top of the head (draw two upside down ‘U’ shapes) and then make the top of the head jagged to represent fur. We can also add some jagged lines to those chubby cheeks and start drawing the beaver’s face by sketching the nose and mouth.
Next, we’ll start adding the cartoon beaver’s legs – draw an arc and a foot with two vertical lines to represent the toes.
Step 3
Build a cartoon Beaver character
Now that we’ve added more details to our cute creature, let’s really bring our cartoon beaver drawing to life by adding some of those all-important features! Make the tail look 3D by drawing another line following the outline of the tail.
Then, draw inside the ear so our wildlife ranger can hear! Now, when chewing wood or chopping trees, it is important to have a good set of teeth, right? Let’s add these now, making them nice and big like in our illustration. Our riverside handyman is really taking shape, but wait! He can’t be useful without hands, right?
Draw these like two clasped hands – one looking from the side and the other facing forward – we’ll explore why they’re drawn this way in the next step of the lesson on how to draw a cartoon beaver!
Step 4
Adding the final details to our dam-building Beaver
Have you ever heard of the old World War II movie, The Dam Busters? Well, our cute creature is a real-life dam builder! Beavers do this to protect their families from predators and to give them easy access to food during the winter. They work extremely hard and are known to cut down many trees every night!
The next stage in learning how to draw a cartoon beaver is to add some finishing touches. Draw the eyes by sketching two sets of overlapping horizontal wavy lines. In the middle of each shape, draw a small circle. Do you remember the feet or hands we drew in the previous stage? We draw them this way because our wildlife warden is holding a stick.
Adding this now, remember to make one end nice and sharp – our busy beaver needs good tools! Next, draw a diagonal line at the tail and then draw an ‘L’ shape on the side of one foot/hand for the elbow. Just below, draw a short vertical line to meet the top of the leg. Speaking of legs, our cartoon beaver currently only has one! Add the other one and there we go – our cartoon beaver is almost ready to go to work!
Step 5
Be a busy beaver with color!
The final stage in learning how to draw a cartoon beaver is also the most fun part – adding color! Choose a dark brown color for the outline, then get busy removing any lines you don’t need.
Next, using a medium brown color, color in the outside of the tail, followed by the face, hands and body, remembering for now to leave the chest area of our cute creature blank. He looks as delicious as a beaver! Now, choose a light yellow for those impressive front teeth and fill in the eyes and nose with black, making sure to leave a small portion of white for highlight.
Finish the inside of the tail with another dark brown and then choose a lighter shade of this color for our wildlife ranger’s stick.
Other drawings for your reference:
