How to Draw a Cute Dog Illustration – Step by Step Procreate Tutorial

Welcome to this week’s tutorial.

Hi, guys. I’m Kris.  Let’s draw together. In this week’s tutorial, we’ll be drawing a cute little dog in Procreate. And I’m sure you can create this, too, if you follow along all the way to the end of the video. If you feel rushed, be sure to hit pause and just rewind to catch up. And save this video to your library so you can re-watch if you need extra practice. Today, we’ll be using all three brushes found in Procreate. And don’t forget, once you’ve finished this entire video, share it on Instagram, and tag me in the image as well as the description, so I can find your artwork and feature it here on the next draw together video.

 

So for this video, I’ve made you a free color palette just in case you’d like to use the exact same colors that I’ll be using during this tutorial. And so you can just tap on the link in the video description below, and you can download and install it into Procreate. Also below, you’ll find a link to a goody bag I’d love to share with you, and you can check out my shop and support me there. So let’s dive in and set up our canvas at 4000 x 4000 pixels, 300 DPI and sRGB. And I’m gonna start with my trusty old 6B pencil, and it can be in whatever color you want. I’m just gonna have black.  Very classic. It’s at about 40%. That should do the trick. And let’s start with a simple sketch and just get some shapes down.

 

So this dog is gonna be a little bit out of proportion. It’s gonna be more of a character, not quite so realistic. So pushing those little Yorkie boundaries a bit, so we’re gonna make his head a little bit bigger. Now, I’m just gonna start with a circle, and then he’s gonna have some ears, and these are just triangles, of course. And then his little body, it’s gonna come about there. I’m just gonna resize this just by pointing my arrow. I’ve made my head just a touch too big.  I’m running out of room. And so he’s gonna have a little paw here, and a paw here, and those are gonna come in. They’re gonna be fairly straight, really. That’s a little body here. Actually, maybe that’s a little bit too far apart for what I want. Hold on a sec.

Squiggly Little Line

So I’m gonna actually just take… Do my squiggly little line, my selection tool here, just select the lower body and I’m gonna resize it. Actually, I’m going to switch it to free form, so I can lengthen this a little bit. I just want it a little bit more narrow. And stay on free form, if it didn’t do that for me. And just resize this a bit here. I’m just gonna make them a little longer there. Let’s see. That should be good. Okay. And then he’s just gonna have his little feet coming out, you just sort of notice them back here somewhere. So again, this is just super messy. Just getting the feel of it. I’m gonna put in his markings a little bit. He’s gonna have this tier. You know how they’re multi-colored, so he’ll have this tier. Under here, he’ll have this. It’s gonna be darker, and these paws will be lighter.

Check Out A Cute Cats and Dogs Clipart Collection

Okay, so let’s get to the face a little bit. So not quite in the center, a little bit lower than the center. I will do his little nose and his little circle eyes that Yorkies are so known for. I’m gonna do it about that. So we have three of these together, and they’re all roughly same size. And then his silly little mouth. It’s gonna look like this, kind of a scoop, and then a scoop this way. Actually, I’m gonna bring that up a little bit more. So I’m gonna grab my selection tool again. Just select that with the arrow, move it up just a hair, and that should be good. So he’s gonna have his little beard here. So that will be there, and then it’ll kind of go out this part here. I don’t really know what that’s called, but anyway, that part. And we know he’s got this shape, is gonna happen, and then the rest of it is the color or the darker color. The ears are gonna come in like that.

It’s really  looking terribly cute right now

Okay. So that’s pretty much… Wow, it’s really  looking terribly cute right now, but it will in a little while. So I just wanna make sure that I’ve got these in the right spot. I think that’s pretty good. It’s sort of the starting point for our lovely little Yorkie. I’m gonna take this sketch, and I’m going to just knock that opacity down by clicking on the N, and bumping it back down to let’s say 25, and I’m gonna create a new layer on top by hitting the plus sign. So then, I’m just gonna have a pick. Let’s see. Let’s do the eyes first. I’m gonna pick this black, it’s actually charcoal in the palette there, and I’m gonna go grab my inking, and I’m gonna go to the dry ink pen. And let’s see. This is gonna be at about 25%, and I’m just gonna darken these, these in here. And my nose is gonna be not quite a circle, rounded at the top. I don’t even know what shape you call this. What’s that? The shape of a vapes or a Vicks VapoRub? [laughter] I don’t know. It’s what it just reminded me of, that symbol. I’m gonna bring my pen down to about 5% or 6%, just to get in here and get the little mouth.

 

So those are really gonna be the only hard lines that we need for this project. Actually, while we’re here, why don’t we just go and do the little highlights, too? So I’m gonna pick up the lightest cream color, and just do a few little highlights here just on his eyes, just have that, and do a little here. I think I’m actually gonna smudge them out just a little bit, too. I’m gonna take my smudger and I’m just gonna use… Just be on the airbrush, and just a soft brush is fine. And you can just bring that down to maybe 3%, maybe that’s too much, 2%, and just get the edges. I’m just slightly doing it. I still want it to be a little bit scratchy, but just soften it a hair there.

 

Okay. Alright, that’s probably good for now. Alright, so a lot of this is going to be all done with the hair brush, but I think I’m gonna block out some colors first. So let’s just pick a new layer, and just bring that below the eyes and nose. And I’m gonna go and… Let’s see. What am I gonna do? I’m gonna go to the painting and just grab the gouache, that’s fine. You can use airbrush or anything like that, but I’ll use the gouache today. I’m just gonna block in some simple colors here. So I’m gonna do this brown, one of the darker medium ones, and I’m just gonna come in and just fill in this area. So I’m at, let’s say 10%, 100% opacity, just blocking this in. I’m not gonna go too far over ’cause I want the hair bristles to go over there.

 

Let’s just get some basic colors here. And then this is gonna be dark down here, this is gonna be dark. It’s a little foot, maybe we’ll have to do this a little smaller, maybe about a size six. Just get his little foot there, his little foot there. Okay, that’s probably good for that color. And I’m gonna go and grab this, the one right beside it, it’s a little bit warmer, and just fill in the rest. Let’s make this brush bigger again, back up to about 15, and we can just color in there. Again, I’m not going outside just ’cause I want those wispy hair bits in.

 

Actually, I don’t like how I did that paw. It’s probably a little bit too much. I just made it a little bit smaller, maybe about 8% or 10%. Okay, and then we can do his ears, too.

 

Alright. Well, he looks kind of weird, but at least we have a base going, so this is a great start. I’m still thinking I want that mouth a little bit higher up. So I’m gonna go back to my layer with the mouth on it, grab my little selection tool, and I did not grab it, grab my little selection tool and bring that up just a hair. That’s better, I think. Okay. Yeah.

 

Alright. So let’s get some hair going. I’m going to just create another layer on top, I think. I probably don’t need to but, I will just in case, and start with some hair. So I’m going to start with this darker brown. So all we’re gonna do is use what we have native to Procreate. So I’m gonna go in and find the touch-ups, and that’s where you’ll find the hair. I’m gonna select short hair to start with. We might use all of them, and we might just use this one. I’m not sure yet, we’ll see. But all you have to do, you can see with this brush, it just gives you that. So that’s what we’re going to need. So I’m just flicking up, careful not to make a funny shape, otherwise it won’t look like hair, and then just trying to go in the direction of how it falls on the dog. So I’m gonna have, let’s say… What are our settings going to be? Maybe at 30, 32, and at about 80% opacity, roughly. Let’s just start with that. So I’m just gonna be flicking, and like I said, going with the way the hair goes. This is gonna be all about layering, lots of layering, and just building this up and creating that depth. What I might wanna do underneath is push that layer behind just to make it look hairy on the edges. So I might go and do that, too. Let’s see.

 

Let’s do that. Okay, so I’m gonna turn this off, and I’m gonna go back and show you something else. Okay. So we’re gonna go to this fill layer that we did before. I’m gonna go to my smudge tool actually, and go and do the same thing. I’m gonna go to the touch-ups, and the short hair, and just push this a bit, if you can see, just to make that edge kind of furry. And I’m gonna make it bigger, let’s say about 35, and just go and soften that edge. That’ll give us a nice little background to work from, so I’m not working against any hard edges.

 

I probably should have made those touch. It will.

Okay, so I think that’ll be better. So now, if we just go back and turn on the hair layer, you can see you don’t have that harsh line, especially when I turn this off. We can actually turn off our sketch layer, we don’t really need it anymore. Let’s go back to the hair, we’re back to that darker brown, and we’re still on our short hair, it’s still at 80% and at about 30% for size. I’m just gonna keep going around and building that up, keeping in the direction of the hair, but still trying to have some variation and irregularity in it, too, if that makes sense.

 

Alright, I’m gonna bring my brush down a little bit smaller to about 12 or 13, and just do a few hairs on the edges here.

 

Alright. While we have the small brush, I’m just gonna put a few little ones in here.

 

And start building a little bit of depth around his eyes.

Looks angry.

Well, he won’t look mad by the end, I hope. It’s not supposed to.  Now, let’s see. Okay, that’s very tough. Okay, so next, we’re gonna do a new color, we’re gonna bring in this medium color there. And I’m gonna go back to about 30%, and start doing that, and it can overlap, of course. You want it to. We’re gonna have variation in this, just trying to build up those layers and that depth.

 

So you want this to be going this way, and just wanna make sure that you’re always remembering what direction the hair would be going in, naturally falling. I hope you can see this. I know it’s the same color, so it’s overlapping a bit but…

 

This is driving me nuts. I’m gonna move it. It’s too noisy.

 

So let’s do another color and I’m gonna grab this more medium brown color and just just go where the eyes are and start creating some more depth here.

 

This color can go between both colors, so I would bring it into this color, too, and just start to create some depth there.

 

Okay. I think I’m gonna go into the layer behind, just to fill in some of this stuff. I’m gonna go into that solid layer that we did behind with the same color still seems to have… And just fill in some of this behind. I think that’ll help because it’s more interesting when you have the different layers coming in on different layers,  if that makes sense, so the color, not just having the lighter color over top with the dark color, but the dark color over top of the light, and that’ll just make a different look, as well, and really fill that in.

 

Okay. So I think he is looking pretty good. Why don’t we focus a little bit on the eyes, ’cause right now these are just crazy little buggy eyes that need a little bit of work. So let’s go on top, and we’ll do a new layer and I’m gonna go… And I think I’m gonna use my favorite, my inking, my dry ink brush to do this. I think it’ll work. Let’s see. Yeah, I’m gonna be on about 5%, and still with this color that we have, just this dark… Well, actually, let’s start with the medium brown, stay on that, 100% opacity, 5% for size and just start coming in here and just overlapping, so some of the hairs are gonna come in here, and just a flicking motion. Just sort of… So we have some of our own more distinct lines. And maybe they might… Like this other little eyelashes go. I think that… And then there’s gonna be, of course, some hairs from here that come over. I don’t know if that’s a little bit too distinctive. Okay, let’s see. Okay, let’s do the same on the other side to start to build that out.

Don’t know if… I might have this corner here. Okay. And then let’s see… Go to the darkest color and get some in there. I’m just gonna be pushing this. Just a few. And they’re close to it.

Okay. I was starting to sink in there a little bit. Alright. And then let’s get this lighter cream color. He’s gonna have some lighter strands here.

Just really, really lightly.

Erase that.  Okay, let’s see. It’s all about just building this up and getting those lines going. So I’m gonna actually do on a layer below. I’m gonna make a new layer. Just because I wanna experiment a little bit more. I’m gonna go to this medium brown. Let’s go, and back to our non-vintage when I get my touch-ups. Let’s try the fine hair and see if we can get… Let’s go to about 22%. Oh yeah, that’ll work, I think. Just get some more hairs going in the back here that are a little bit more defined, a little bit less, of course, than what we were doing with the ink brush. I just get some more colors going here, more lines. This actually, I think, will work well for some more definition. That’s good.

How about this color? Let’s try that, too. That warmer color. I think I actually wanna add a little bit warmer there. Better.

 

 

Okay, let’s try this lighter cream color and just work a little bit more where the muzzle is.

 

 

Yeah, that works well. You know how they have almost little old man eyebrows here.  That works. That’s starting to look good. Kind of just want a little funny hairs, doing some stuff there just to make it a little irregular. Actually, I’m gonna go on my top layer again just to do a few things, ’cause I wanted them to go over the eyes a little bit. That’s good. Okay, I’m gonna go back to my layer below.

It’s just about layering and layering, and layering. You can go on for a long time, just making this look as realistic… This isn’t gonna look super realistic, but get that fur going as much as you want, for sure. I won’t go on all day today, otherwise this video will be terribly long.  But we’ll get the idea, so you know what to do for little fuzzy creatures like this.

 

There. I just wanted this part to be a little bit separate from this part. I think that’s… Accomplished what I wanted. Yeah, okay. So I’m gonna try to sink this mouth in just a little bit more, so I’m going to just get that dark brown and I’m gonna go back to that fine hair. Same settings, we’re just gonna stay at about… What is this now? Twenty-four, 25, something like that. And just with little short strokes, just kinda… Oh, that’s not gonna work, actually. Let’s bring this down to 12 and just get darker in that corner, just blending that mouth in a little bit more just with little short strokes.

 

I think that’s good. You can pull some of them through, too. This kinda makes him look a little bit like a Muppet.  Alright. I’m just gonna get a few darker in here. Same with around the nose, just pushing that in a little bit.

 

Let’s go… I do have that, okay. Lets go and just continue to darken this area a little bit.

 

Let’s do a little bit more on the ears. I’m gonna grab this medium brown and let’s go to about size 16, 15, something like that. No, let’s go to size about 25. Maybe just do a few more distinguishing hairs on these ears here.

 

And let’s just get the really light white. Put a few in here.

 

Okay. I think I’m gonna go on a layer below and just add some more of this dark brown. Still, same settings on this brush.

 

So I’m really disappointed, the last few minutes of this tutorial, my camera decided to turn off on its own, which is super frustrating. But anyways,  you didn’t miss much. I just kept going and just kept adding a few more layers of just fur. That’s all it was, just a little bit more definition and just layering upon layering. Exactly the same thing that I’ve been doing this whole tutorial. So you didn’t really miss much, so don’t worry. I hope you’re not too disappointed. But I hope you did enjoy this tutorial, and if you did, please hit that like button, subscribe, and don’t forget to hit the bell icon so you can be notified of new tutorials just like this one, hopefully without my camera dying at the end. But I do release a tutorial every week. Thank you so much for watching, guys. I love you and I’ll see you in the next one.