Werewolf design by Antonio Stappaerts. Digital 2d art.

How to Draw a Werewolf: 5 Steps Art Workout

Drawing, Design, Organic, Figure

Most werewolves online are a wolf head glued onto a bodybuilder (we’ve all drawn one, no shame). The good ones feel like a real animal and a real person fused into one body. This workout takes you there in three parts: study real canines, understand what’s under the fur, then turn a character you love into a werewolf.

Step 1: Which Animals Should You Study First?

Pick three real canines from the reference library.

Simplify each animal into manipulated simple forms. Boxes and cylinders that bend, taper and twist to follow the body, rather than rigid geometry sitting inside the silhouette.

Then rotate each animal once into a different angle. This is the part that does the work, because rotating a form means you understood it. Keep the gesture and flow of the animal intact while you do it. A simplified dog should still feel like it is about to move.

Finally, place a figure mannequin in the exact same position as your rotated canine, from imagination. No reference. This is where the werewolf starts, since you are asking a human body to do something canine.

New to building forms? Our Intro to Drawing road covers this properly.

Art Workout: Drawing a Werewolf. Step 1.

Step 2: Anatomy (Your favourite)

Start with the bones. Draw the skeleton from the side, then the front, then a three-quarter view. The hind leg is the one to pay attention to, because what looks like a backwards knee is the ankle, and getting that wrong is what makes a werewolf read as a costume.

Do the same for the muscles, simplified into the same manipulated forms. You are after the big masses rather than every individual muscle. In case you need guidance with this step, we have a Course dedicated specifically to Wolves.

Canine anatomy study. Digital 2d art.

Step 3: Mannequins

Make mannequinized versions of at least three werewolf designs. Different proportions, different builds, no detail yet. If you are not sure things are going in the right direction, submit your WIPs to the Artwod Community Hub. Real artists will check it with a fresh eye and help you out by giving art critique.

Werewolf anatomy and mannequin, 2d art. 

Step 4: Fur

Fur is an essential part of any animalistic creature. So this is a great excuse to do some studies. Do two studies: one fur study from real life, and one from an artist whose fur you admire. The first teaches you how fur behaves, and the second teaches you how someone solved the problem of painting it without rendering every hair. Our Wolves Course is covering this step in full.

Step 5: Design

You've reached the most exciting part of this workout! Pick one character from an IP you like, and make a werewolf version of them. The catch is that the original character has to stay recognisable. That constraint is what turns this from a creature drawing into a design exercise, since you have to work out which features carry the character’s identity.

Generate six thumbnails, small and fast. Then pick one and refine it.

Refine it by adding colour, then a shadow and ambient occlusion pass, and then texture detail using what you learned from the fur studies. Keep the texture for last, because a design that does not read in silhouette will not be rescued by fur.