How to Draw a Realistic Bird | Step by Step Sketch Tutorial

What's up everyone and welcome to the club. In today's video I'll show you how to use basic shapes to create a simple sketch of a bird. What's up everyone and thanks for joining me today. For this lesson we'll need a sketch pad and a pencil. I'm going to be sketching with this 2B styler pencil but you're welcome to use whatever you'd like. Now the first thing we want to do is define the basic shapes of our drawing before we get into the details. So let's start on the top right side of our page. We're going to lightly sketch out a circle for the head. We go all the way around and the circle doesn't have to be perfect we just want to capture the right size and placement on our page. Let's go to the left side of our circle. We draw a straight line coming down and over towards the left towards the bottom of the body. Now let's round out the body. We draw almost like a large half circle coming around and just pull it up towards the bottom right side of our circle. Let's separate the circle in half with a straight line going across towards the right. We're going to extend this past the side of our circle. Let's go all the way down towards this bottom point. I'm just going to angle the wing coming up and then in towards the bottom of our circle. Let's go back to this corner and draw the tail. I'm just going to angle this out, flatten this off and then pull that back up and in. I want to draw two lines coming down from the bottom of the body for the legs. So let's start on the left, move over towards the right, go out and then down. Let's flatten off the bottom of the feet starting with the left with a straight line. Now the right leg is going to be up a little bit higher. Let's draw another line going across. Let's go to the center of the head and draw a circle for the eye. Now once we're happy with the general proportions, I'm going to go back and add a second level of detail. Let's start from the tip of the beak. It's going to go up and in toward the side. Go back to the tip, come down and in. Now from here it's going to angle us back in towards the eye. Let's go to the top left side of our eye, sketch out a small circle for highlight. It's going to lightly shade in the bottom of the eye. Now we're going to go back and lightly erase some of these guidelines. I'm just going to clean up our drawing. Also the base of the head going in towards the wing. Now we're going to be using this rough sketch as a guide to help us learn some more detail and refine the shapes. I'd like to start with the eyes. We're going to add a point on the inside on the right. It's going to add a little bit of contrast going around the eye. I'm just going to pull this out toward the side. Draw the bottom of the eye again coming up towards that point. Add a little bit more shape to the highlight. It's going to darken up the top of the eye and then fade that down to create a little bit of a glare across the bottom. Now from the eye we're just going to work our way out. It's going to add a little bit of texture going around the edge of the eye and up along the top of the beak. Go across the front of the head and out. So we're just going to brush the fur going across the head and then down. From here it's going to work our way around the top of the eye, brushing this out and then from the bottom. I'm just going to darken up the bottom of the beak and also the inside of the beak along the top. I'm just going to fade that out. I'm just going to brush the fur coming down towards the neck. Add a little bit of texture just underneath. Let's go back to the back of the head. I'm just going to blend in towards that wing. You want to give this some shape to the wing. I'm just going to bend this around the center and then down towards the point. Add a little bit of texture across the bottom of the head. I'm going to add some texture across the wing starting from the bottom in the middle going up. I'm going to blend that down and from the tip of the wing and blend to that texture going up. I'm just working our way across the bottom of the body. We want to go a little bit darker with that texture across the bottom. This is sort of where the shadow is going to sit. The lights come from the top coming down so all the lines and shadows will be darker across the bottom edge of each shape. I want to separate this section into separate feathers. Add two, darken up the tip and then fade that in. Now for the legs we just want to fill these in almost like a silhouette. I'm just going to pull the legs in towards the ankles so it's thicker along the top. I'm going to add a little bit of shape to the claws. Let's start with the back claw. Spin this down towards the point and we'll do the same thing on the right. I'm going to use the side edge of my pencil to refine that texture. I'm just going to soften up our feathers and just add some light tones across the head and body. I can layer on a little bit more fine detail on top of our drawing. I'm just going to go back to the wing and just separate the feathers. I'm adding some texture across the base of the head. I'm going to add a soft shadow underneath the feet and then fade that out so the body is sort of casting a shadow going out. Now as we get near the end we're just going to soften up our shadows and textures and always be sure to sign our artwork and that's pretty much it. There's a sketch illustration of a bird. I hope you enjoyed today's lesson. If you do please be sure to subscribe for more videos each week where I'll show how to draw simple things just like this. I want to thank you for joining me today and I'll see you again soon.