How To Draw Skull And Crossbones

Drawing skull and cross bones is another fun pirate type of design and has been done to death and I thought I'd create a drawing tutorial on how to draw a skull and cross bones image in a series of step by step drawing instructions.

It's nothing too heavy to draw and you just practice to draw a skull and cross bones image based on this little inspiring drawing tutorial.

I like drawing skulls in all their forms and his was a fun drawing for me, as it wasn't overly detailed, just right to show you a quick skull drawing lesson of inspiration.

 The skull and cross bones have been sketched in draft and all is needed at the very start is the oval shape for the head which is of course the skull and then as you can see, the crossed lines represent the two skeleton bones corss, hence the skull and crossbones tagline.

I drew this drawing tutorial all the steps with a 2B pencil and this is far better than what I tried to do previously with other tutorials and so I'll update the others quite soon by re-drawing them and scanning them in.

All basic drawings like this, is the foundation of the end result and thinking in simple terms makes sense so as not to committ to a final image until it has been worked out on paper first.

 Refining the skull and the bones is simple here as all I have done is add to the simplicity of the design. I've kept the oval skull head shape th same and drawn some skull eyes which are on purpose drawn round to give it a cartoon feel, but you can do whatever you like really.

And then for the bones I have just drawn them with simple round shapes on the end to get a feel for the mass and also to make sure the cross looks almost symmetrical so it balances the skull and cross bones design.

Each stage of your drawing should progress the design and it should look better with every step you take.

The main skull features have been added in now, all be it roughly and you can see a skull and cross bones image coming through quite nicely, although it looks quite cartoony, this is just to give you a fun way of drawing a skull and cross bones as I didn't want to over complicate it with a huge amount of detail like most of my other drawings.

Notice now the bones have been drawn to look like bones with the joint ends sitting against the each other almost like it's trying to prop up the skull somehow.

The cheek bones aren't right, but I'll fix that in the next drawing...(mistakes happen deal with them!)

The final pencil drawing of the skull and crossbones image sees the drawing looking more defined and even more cartoony, with the cheekbones sorted out as one was bigger then the other I've sorted that out by using my trusty lightbox again and matching the cheekbones up to each.

It's not a perfect skull and cross bones, but it's something to inspire and get you started drawing the many skulls and shapes that could include a skull design in your own art.

You may find these two hubpages quite useful -

How to draw a flaming skull

How to draw a skull

Wayne Tully is currently still working on his website which features drawing inspirations with drawing video tutorials which you can watch and learn to draw fantasy art here