How to Draw a Rubber Duck (Easy Guide)
This tutorial shows how to draw a rubber duck sitting on water in six steps. It includes basic drawing and coloring examples along with simple explanations.
The duck in the example can either be a rubber duck or a cartoon one. The drawing is highly simplified and stylized.
As the duck is shown from the side you only need to add one eye and one wing. Also, because it’s floating on water you don’t need to worry about drawing the feet at all. This makes for quite an easy tutorial.
It’s recommended that you start the drawing using a pencil and use fairly light lines that won’t leave marks in case you have to make a correction. Darken them when you have the entire duck outlined.
For more on drawing birds in a similar style see:
How to Draw an Owl Easy (9 Steps)
Step 1 – Draw the Outline of the Duck’s Head & Body
Begin by making an outline drawing of parts of the duck’s head and body. The head should be somewhat round towards the top transitioning into the slightly narrower neck. Leave the part where the bill is attached open (slightly towards the lower part of the head).
Draw the body with a smooth curve at the bottom that then transitions into the tail. You can give the tail a little split on its end to create a hint of feathers.
Leave the area between the tail and the neck open for the wing.
Step 2 – Draw the Beak
Into the opening in the head’s outline draw the bill. Make it slightly narrower as it goes out (away from the head) and draw it’s overall shape with a bit of curve. Also, be sure to draw the top part of the bill larger and slightly longer than the bottom.
Step 3 – Draw the Wing
Between the neck and tail draw the wing. Make it rounded on it’s forward facing side and give it some splits on it’s end to again create hints of feathers (similar to the tail).
Step 4 – Draw the Eye & Nostril
Towards the bottom/front side of the head (near the bill) draw the eye. As this is a cartoon looking duck make the eye quite large and make it’s shape somewhat like an upside down letter “U” with a light curve at it’s bottom.
Inside the eye draw the iris shapes almost exactly like the outline of the eye but smaller. Inside the iris add a small oval highlight (light reflecting from the eye).
You can also add a hint of an eyebrow above the eye with a tiny curve.
For more on drawing cartoon style eyes see:
8 Examples of How to Draw Eye Expressions
After drawing the eye also add a small oval shaped nostril to the upper part of the beak (close to the head).
Step 5 – Draw the Feather Pattern & Water
Add some water ripples around the duck to show that it’s floating and so me feathers around the middle of the wing.
Draw the water ripples as though they are “wrapping around” the duck and try and make the lines that define them particularly light.
For more on drawing water see:
How to Draw a Bottle of Water (8 Simple Steps)
Draw the feathers as sets of little curves that that look a bit like fish scales.
For drawing an actual fish see:
How to Draw a Goldfish (Easy Step by Step Guide)
Once done with the above you can go over your the duck with darker pencil lines or a black pen/marker but don’t darken the water. You can also fill in the iris of the eye with black or dark pencil shading (leave the little reflection white).
Step 6 – Color the Duck
To color the duck make it’s bill orange and the rest of it yellow (other than the white of the eye). Go over the water ripples with a blue pen or marker.
Once finished you should have a nice and simple drawing of a cartoon or rubber duck.
Conclusion
By using a simplified style and giving a drawing just a little bit of detail you can get art that looks nice and is not too difficult to create (as is shown with the duck in this tutorial). Hopefully you’ve found this guide helpful and had fun following along.
For more simple tutorial on drawing other things in a similar style also see:
