How to draw a realistic bee 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:
Belly shaping
When it comes to using a construction line, it’s always best to start with the largest part of the animal’s body. So, for our bee drawing, we’ll start by building the belly. For the abdomen, use a long and rather narrow oval to show this part of the bee. The oval should be diagonally angled and slightly off-center on your canvas as we will be drawing the rest of the bee to the left of this belly.
The most important thing to consider in this first step is to make sure that there is plenty of space around this build step so that you don’t end up with a slightly flattened bee.
Step 2:
Draw your bee chest
For the chest part of the bee, you will use a large circle. This circle should overlap slightly with the belly oval and its top should be slightly above the highest point of the abdomen.
In terms of positioning, the chest circle should be in the center of your canvas.
Step 3:
Outline the shape of the head
The first part of our bee drawing is long and narrow, so to create it we will use a small and narrow oval. The oval of the head should be slightly tilted towards the back of the canvas.
Again, the oval of the head should slightly coincide with the roundness of the chest.
Step 4:
More bee proboscis
Bees are the most important pollinators in our ecosystem and they do this by rubbing pollen while sucking nectar out of flowers. To suck up this sweet nectar, bees use their pointed proboscis, which is what we’ll be drawing in this step.
Using a slightly curved “V” shape, attach the mouth to your bee drawing at the bottom point of the oval on top.
Step 5:
Sketch of a bee’s antennae
As we continue to focus on the build, we’ll move on to laying out the basic shape of the bee’s whiskers. Using two simple curves, attach the antennae to the left side of the bee’s head, just below the midpoint.
To capture a realistic view, the top antenna must start in an oval at the top and should be significantly longer than the other. The lower antenna can extend almost directly down from one side of the oval on the top and should be much shorter.
Step 6:
Sketch your bee wings
For the wings of the bee, you will use two long ovals. Start with the upper wing significantly narrower than the other and must begin and end at the upper point of the chest circle. For the second wing, you can use a slightly larger and thicker oval that starts in the chest circle.
The position and size of these two wings are essential to capture the true perspective of your simple bee drawing.
Step 7:
Lay the foundation of the front foot
Bees, like most insects, have segmented legs like their segmented bodies. Start by drawing the front leg closest to us from our point of view. Start by drawing a sausage-like shape extending down from the chest circle just behind the intersection of the head and thorax. At the bottom of this sausage, draw another “S” shaped sausage that curves forward at the bottom.
The second front leg is almost hidden behind the head, so we’ll just draw the curvier bottom protruding from the head oval just below the mouth.
Step 8:
Crafting the middle leg
Bees, like other insects, have six legs, two in the front, two in the middle, and two in the back. Now it’s time to build the middle legs extending from the chest circle. Start with the middle leg closest to the front of the body and extend from the center of the bottom line of the chest circle. This leg is the furthest from our view, so it should look like the second front leg we drew in the previous step.
For the larger of the two middle legs, you can use the same pattern as for the large front foot, but this foot should be slightly toward the back of the tarp.
Step 9:
Outline the hind legs
The hind legs are the largest and begin inside the abdomen. Overlap the back belly draw both legs at an angle that join together at the base. The back leg should be much larger than all the other pins you’ve drawn so far and should end in a pointed curve.
At the end of this step, your drawing should look like our example below.
Step 10:
Draw eyes for your bee
The bee has very large eyes, only slightly smaller than the oval at the top. In the head oval, draw a slightly smaller oval, slightly more vertical than the head.
Step 11:
Pollen Ball Sketch
To make our drawing of the bee as realistic as possible, we will draw a pollen ball. Pollen is usually concentrated on the large hind legs, so on the largest part of this leg, draw an angled oval.
Step 12:
Draw the final outline of your bee sketch
Now that we’ve created our bee, we can use these lines to create the final outline of our simple bee drawing. For the most part, you can follow the construction lines closely. Start with beard, use c
The road is built as the mid lane. You can then outline the bee’s head, making it a bit more pointed towards the mouth. When outlining the top and back of the bee’s head, use short feather strokes to give the impression of plumage, as bees have a soft appearance.
You can continue to outline the rest of the bee’s body using these short hair lines. You can also create some sections on the chest and belly with this fur texture.
Use smooth lines to create the shape of the wings and you can outline the belly with a straight line, bringing the bottom in a small spot. The legs should also be outlined with straight lines and you don’t need to draw along the segmented line but remember to make the lines narrower at these joints to maintain the segments.
After completing this step, you are ready to delete any construction lines that are still visible.
Step 13:
Create textures and fur details
In the last step before adding color, we will add fur textures and other details to our bee sketch. Start by using short lines to create a segmented texture for the wings. These freeline patterns are subject to the direction and angle of the wing. While you are working on the wing, you can add some small dots and blobs of color to the base of the wing to create more depth.
Next, move up to your bee’s chest, using feather strokes to create texture. These feathers will extend outward from the base of the largest wing. Continue to fill the rest of the bee’s body with these lines, carefully following the shape of each segment.
Once you get to the belly, you can start using these short lines to create signature striped patterns. For the head, the hair lines should extend into a few loops around the eyes. You can also add some more shadow to the beard and do the same for the legs. These areas on the legs will be painted black in our coloring steps. To finish off the detail drawing, add a few squiggly lines to the anther, creating a bumpy texture.
Step 14:
Spread the first layer of color paint
For the base color paint, you will use a single layer of yellow to paint the entire body of the bee except for the wings.
No matter what medium you’re using, make sure the base coat is smooth and consistent.
Step 15:
Coloring Bee Wings
For the wings, we will use light beige as the background. Use a fine brush to create a smooth and consistent coating of color, making sure not to make it too dark.
Step 16:
Draw the details in black
The second most prominent color in bees is black. In this step, take a black color and smooth brush, and color in the parts of the bee that are blackest.
Add this shadow to the beard, eyes and legs.
Step 17:
Add dimension with shadows and highlights
You can immediately see that there is a significant difference between the previous step and this step, but don’t be too surprised. This difference is because the shadow adds dimension and creates the right perspective. Start by using a bit of white paint and a soft brush to lighten the neck area that separates the bee’s head and thorax. You can do the same at the split between the chest and abdomen.
While you’re using the white paint, add a bit of a lightly blended highlighter to the top of the bee’s eyes and create a very light “U” shaped reflection along the lower part of the bee’s curve. eye.
Now is the time to focus on the darkness. Use a small but soft brush to add black shadows to the bristles around the bee’s head. Concentrate black specifically on parts of the head and body that would be naturally hidden from light, including the underside of the neck and just behind the highlight separating the head and thorax. As you move to the belly of the bee drawing, use the black shadow to create alternating black and yellow lines.
To get the smoothest possible blend, dab your brush lightly on the canvas and gently apply it in place.
Step 18:
Add yellow highlights
In this step we will use yellow and white to create some more highlights along the antennae and legs of your bee drawing. It’s up to you where you want to focus your light, but it’s best to consider where natural light will hit the bee and use that to guide your lighting choices. One place we recommend adding highlights is on the articulation areas between the leg segments. This prominent placement will emphasize the bifurcation of the bee’s legs.
If you need some guidance on where to place your highlights, check out our example below for inspiration.
Step 19:
Mixing colors in wings
To blend the color of the wings and make them appear more opaque, you would use a dark brown. Start by focusing a light dark brown color along the wing bones that are attached to the main body of the bee. You can then continue to blend this shadow gently into the wings, concentrating most of the shadow along the bottom edge of the largest wing and
Make sure it gets brighter as you move up the wing.
For the smaller wing, blend a darker shadow along the top segment as shown in our example below, again ensuring that the color blends into the lighter shade as you go up the wing.
Step 20:
More finishing steps
The last step in this tutorial is optional, but it’s a lovely way to create a smooth and seamless bee drawing. You just want to remove all the contours in your bee artboard by filling them with the corresponding color of the area.
realistic bee drawing simple
