How To Draw Cats! (Patreon)

Hello - let’s talk about cats! 🐱

Whether you love them in real life or not, drawing cats is super fun because you can give them so much personality.

They can be grumpy, naughty, playful, sleepy, happy - so many things!

So let me show you how I draw cats so that you can enjoy drawing them too. One thing that I should point out though is that I don’t necessarily draw ‘accurate’ cats, they’re a bit stylised and simplified so the proportions aren’t always accurate to the real thing. Just keep that in mind!

Drawing A Cat’s Face

Let’s start with the face because it’s important! Drawing a cat’s face front on is really simple:

Start by drawing a semi-circle with a flat top, although I usually like to curve the top a little bit.

Then on the top draw a triangle that lines up with each edge (left and right) to form the ears.

Now draw a cross in the middle - this will guide us when drawing the eyes and nose.

We’ve got the basic shape framework drawn, now we can draw a full outline. Trace around the outside of the framework we’ve just drawn to create an outline of the head. Then we can add the important details! Draw a cute little nose in the centre of the cross, an eye on either side (about halfway from the centre to the edge), and then three lines for whiskers on either side but a little further down. I also like to add small triangles for the insides of the ears. So cute!

Facing Different Directions

To draw a cat facing in different directions is really simple. The front of their face is rounded (at least in a simplified style like mine) so when they’re facing to either side round the front of their face and draw the cross as if it’s wrapped around a curve as well. The cross indicates what direction they’re facing, so it shouldn’t be centred this time, it should be toward the direction they’re facing, and if they’re looking up or down it should be pointing that way too.

A Simple Standing Cat

Let’s start with a simple, standing cat so that we can learn the framework for a cat’s body and then we can apply it to a few poses.

Start by drawing the shape of the head with a cross on it to show what direction the cat will be looking in. Because the face is rounded at the front, the vertical line is curved.

Add two pointy ears on top - one lining up with each side of the head. Draw a second circle over to the right and down a bit to frame where the rear leg will go - I try not to have the top of it more than halfway up the cat’s face. I draw my cats with quite big heads, if you want yours to be more accurate then you can draw the second circle bigger than the head because cat’s heads are actually quite small.

Now let’s join the two sections with a curved line that runs from the back of the head to the top of the second circle, and then draw a curved line in the same shape but this time from the bottom of the face to the bottom of the second circle.

Then add the two legs that are closest to us. The front leg lines up with the right side of the head and gets skinnier toward the bottom. I don’t usually give my cats very long legs, I make them approximately the same height as the head and ears. The back leg is similar, but lines up with the back of the second circle.

Then we can do the same with the legs that are furthest from us, but we can draw these offset to the left a little.

Add a little oval shape to the bottom of each leg for the paw, and a line to indicate the shape of the tail. I’ve drawn a sort of ‘s’ shape for this tail, but you could experiment with different shapes to suggest different moods for your cat.

Now that the framework is done, we can outline it. Outline the face just like I showed you before, with a nose in the centre of the cross and an eye on either side. Because this kitty is turned to the side, we don’t need to outline the whole face, we can leave a gap where the face meets the body. Trace around the outside of the body shape, leaving a space for the legs that are closest to us. The front leg can pretty much follow the framework we drew (except leave it open at the top), but the back legs are much wider at the top than they are at the bottom. And it's finished!

Now that we have a bit of an understanding of a basic cat, but like I said before my cats aren’t quite accurate to regular proportions - mine have bigger heads and simplified faces. Try experimenting with the size of different features like the head, ears or eyes and see how it feels for your style.

Half the fun of drawing cats is capturing their personality so you’ll probably want to draw them in all sorts of poses.

We can use the same basic building blocks from the standing cat to draw them in different poses, and I’ve drawn a few examples here for you to follow along.

Playful Kitty

Just like the earlier examples, we can start by drawing the head with a cross to indicate the direction they’re looking in. Then we can draw the circle for the hind legs, but this time I’ve drawn it as more of an oval that leans in the direction that the cat will be leaning. Just like before, we can join the two circles to build the body shape.

Add the legs that are closest to us - I’ve drawn the back leg as a curve now that they’re sitting down (rather than straight).

I’ve got this kitty playing with a toy so I’ve drawn the rough shape of that, added the tail, and the final leg.

Now you can outline everything using the framework as a guide. Make sure that you leave shapes open when they join (like the leg to the body). I also added little details on the paws for this one!

You can do a similar process for other poses too, here are two more examples broken down:

I used the second pose to illustrate a full colour illustration to post on Instagram last week and I love how simple and cute they look.

From the basic framework I added the outlines, then coloured in the basic shapes and added lots of layers of shading and texture (I won’t go into those steps here though)!

I hope you enjoy drawing some little cats of your own - what colour will yours be? 🐱🥰