How to Draw Skulls

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This article was co-written by Renée Plevy. Renée Plevy is an internationally recognized portrait artist from New York/Palm Beach who has painted The Grand Dames of Palm Beach and portraits of numerous celebrities and community leaders. With over 50 years of experience, Renée specializes in realistic oil painting. She studied with world-renowned portrait painters such as John Howard Sanden, David Leffel, Robert Beverly Hale, Clyde Smith, and Leonid Gervits. Renée’s work has been shown in more than 68 performances and exhibitions, including a performance at the Paterson Museum. She has received numerous awards, including the Bloomfield Art League’s “Artist of the Year” award and the Boca Raton Museum Artist’s Guild First Prize. Even Renée once painted portraits of Vanilla Ice. She teaches at the Boca Raton Museum of Art School – formerly taught at SVA in Manhattan.

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Whether you’re drawing anatomy or preparing for Halloween, learning how to draw skulls is an exercise in drawing to scale. Let’s start with a simple circle and draw some fuzzy guides to define the position of the jawline, teeth, and eye sockets. Once you have outlined the main lines, you can sharpen the long drawing by polishing in the dark areas.

Table of Contents

Draw a skull seen from the front

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Draw a circle. Take a pencil and draw a fuzzy circle. Sketch a circle about the width of the skull you intend to draw. You will use this sketch to draw the top of the skull. ^{[1] X Research Source}

If you are having trouble drawing a circle, you can use a compass or outline a circular object about the same size as the skull you intend to draw.

Draw a horizontal line and a vertical line passing through the center of the circle. To get a straight line as a landmark for the outlines of the skull, you can place the ruler through the center of the circle. Draw a horizontal line, then turn the ruler to draw a vertical line. ^{[2] X Research Source}

Extend the vertical line below the circle so you can draw your jawline against it.

Draw 2 hexagons below the horizontal line. Draw an eye socket in both lower quadrants of the circle. Draw the top edge of each hexagon along the center guide line and take up half the area of each quadrant. ^{[3] X Research Sources}

The two hexagons are separated by one-fifth the width of the circle.

Draw the nasal cavity along the vertical line. Draw a short horizontal line on the vertical line about midway across the eye socket. From the ends of the horizontal line, draw two vertical strokes down the sides and slightly diagonally outside the center of the circle. When the pencil tip almost reaches the bottom of the circle, you will connect the two strokes to a point at the bottom of the circle on the vertical line. ^{[4] X Research Sources}

The nasal cavity is diamond-shaped near the base, but near the top it is more square.

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Draw an angled outline on the sides and center of the skull. Gently sketch from the temples towards the eye sockets so that the skull is slightly protruding out. Curve toward the center of the skull and then back out at the level of the nasal cavity. Next, draw a diagonal line down below the nasal cavity. Continue drawing this horizontal line to connect with the opposite side of the skull. ^{[5] X Research Sources}

Repeat this step for the opposite side to join the previous stroke.
Draw a bottom horizontal line in the middle of the skull, twice the width of the nasal cavity.

Shape the upper teeth along the horizontal line in the center of the skull. Draw ovals vertically down below the horizontal line for the teeth. Each tooth is about ½ of the distance from the bottom of the nasal cavity to the horizontal line of the teeth. Draw 3 large teeth on each side of the vertical line, then add 2 more small ovals at both ends to show the teeth are rounding back. ^{[6] X Research Source}

Draw teeth as round or square as you like. You can look at pictures to imitate, because each person has a different tooth type.
If you want your skull to lose a few teeth, leave some space.

Draw jawline. Measure the distance from the head of the skull to the intersection of the vertical and horizontal guide lines. Draw a horizontal line a similar distance from the base of the nasal cavity to the jawline. This line will be half the length of the teeth. From the ends of the horizontal line, draw 2 diagonal lines up and out. Next, draw a line connecting the jawline to the sides of the skull. ^{[7] X Research Sources}

Draw both diagonal lines of length equal to the length of the horizontal line in the middle of the jaw.

Tip: Remember that the jawbone is not as wide as the top of the skull.

Draw the lower teeth along the jawline. Shaping the lower teeth of the same size as the upper teeth, with the incisors larger than the teeth on the sides. Draw 4-5 teeth on either side of the center vertical line, adding 1 or 2 smaller teeth on the outside. ^{[8] X Research Sources}

To give the skull more depth of perspective, you can leave small gaps at the end of each tooth to represent the space between the skull and the jaw.

Polish the nasal cavity and eye sockets. Use a darker pencil or press harder to polish each eye socket and nasal cavity. These areas are hollow and deep, so they will be darker than the other parts of the skull that you will be polishing. ^{[9] X Research Source}

If you want the cavities to be smooth, you can use a pencil brush to polish with graphite.
To highlight the teeth, fill in the lines between the teeth, skull and jawbone.

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Erase excess lines. Before you start polishing your drawing, you need to erase the horizontal and vertical guide lines that are still visible. Gently erase even the circle strokes.

Be careful not to mistakenly erase the actual strokes while erasing the guide lines.

Polish the skull to create depth. Polish with diagonal technique in the space above the eye socket, at the location of the eyebrow. Continue polishing these gaps until they appear to be deeper than the rest of the skull. Other areas that need polishing include: ^{[10] X Research Source}

The upper part of the sides of the skull
Along the jawline
Both sides of the nasal cavity

Draw a skull looking sideways

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Draw a circle that extends slightly at the ends. Instead of drawing a tapered oval at the ends, you will sketch a slightly flattened circle about the same size as the skull you intend to draw. This circle is slightly flattened horizontally but not tapered at the ends. ^{[11] X Research Source}

Draw a concentric circle and draw guides in the center. Draw another translucent circle inside the circle just drawn. The distance between the two circles will be ¼ of the great circle radius. Next, draw a horizontal line going through the skull’s midpoint and a vertical line also passing through the midpoint. To draw the jawline, you will place the tip of the pencil on the vertical line, at the intersection with the bottom of the small circle. Draw a horizontal line extending to the side of the skull. ^{[12] X Research Source}

Draw lightly so you can erase the guides later.

Create a jawline on one side of the skull. Draw a faint vertical line, starting from one side of the skull where you intend to draw the jawbone. Place the pencil tip at the intersection of the vertical line that intersects the horizontal line you just drew. Draw a curved line down the bottom of the jawbone, away from the skull. When this curve is half the width of the skull, you will draw a diagonal line up towards the skull. ^{[13] X Research Source}

The jawline will end at the intersection of the small circle with the vertical guide.

Draw the nasal cavity and the protruding brow bone. Place the pencil tip over the jawline, where it protrudes from the skull. When drawing upwards towards the nose, curve inward at the intersection of the lower horizontal line that intersects the vertical line you used as the jawline guide earlier. Next, draw the diagonal up and slightly protruding. ^{[14] X Research Source}

The upper protrusion will be the brow bone, which will then be connected to the skull.

Outline eye sockets and shading. Draw a vertical crescent just below and behind the brow. Extend the crescent until it reaches the mid-length of the nasal cavity. Next is buffing the eye sockets to create depth and hollow. ^{[15] X Research Source}

Draw a zigzag line at the end of the skull that connects to the jawbone. Draw a circle down below the eye socket and up towards the center of the skull. Continue dragging the line horizontally, zigzagging a bit until it reaches about mid-jawline. Then draw a zigzag line that curves down to join the curve of the skull. ^{[16] X Research Source}

This step will form the bottom of the skull.

Draw the upper and lower teeth. Draw a long S shape down the middle of the jawbone and draw 2 faint horizontal lines from the side of the jaw to the S shape. Leave enough space between the two horizontal lines to draw the teeth. Draw 6-7 teeth along each horizontal line. The teeth closest to the S-curve are as wide as the eye sockets. Draw the back teeth getting smaller towards the end so that it is just a small piece. ^{[17] X Research Source}

Tip: Remove some teeth if you want the skull’s teeth to be incomplete.

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Clear visible guide lines. To complete the drawing, you will use a small eraser to erase the vertical and horizontal guide lines that are still visible. If you have overdrawn these lines, leave them as they are, delete only the highlights. ^{[18] X Research Sources}

Instead of using a large eraser, try using a pencil eraser.

Polish some parts of the skull if you want to add depth to the drawing. Bold along the back of the skull to highlight the curve. Next is polishing in the middle of the skull behind the eye sockets. Draw a crescent moon and use cross-polishing techniques to give the skull a rough look. ^{[19] X Research Source}

Polish the upper part of the jawbone where it meets the base of the skull to accentuate the jaw.

Advice

Decorate the skull with flames, crossbones, wings or roses around.
Color the skull with crayons or markers if you like.

Things you need

Pencil
Ruler
Eraser
Paper
Pencil (optional)

Steps

Draw a skull seen from the front

Draw a skull looking sideways

Advice

Things you need

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