How to Draw a Sly Cartoon Tiger

This cartoon tiger may look a little detailed in the colored picture above but we’ll break him down and it shouldn't be too hard to make a nice looking drawing. As usual will break the character down into simple, easy to draw shapes and then finally go in and add in the details. Ready?

Step 1 -- The Head and Body

Start the head and body by making tapered rectangles that are slightly curved along the sides. Pay close attention to the relationship in size between the top rectangle, and the bottom rectangle. We want the tiger to have quite a large head, a broad chest and a skinny torso.

Step 2 -- Adding Details

First ad the ears and mouth to the cartoon tiger by just adding circles -- we'll finish these up in the next step. Add another rectangle inside the body area. This second rectangle will be the belly and chest where the fur is a different color than the rest of the body.

Also add some curved lines along the side of the body to start creating the shape of arms. If you jump ahead to step three you'll notice that the lines we've drawn in step 2 completely make the tiger's left arm.

Step 3 -- More Detailing

Add some jagged lines to the ears and mouth area to make them a little more interesting. Erase the part of the ears where they connect to the head. Add a small, rounded upside down triangle for the nose.

Draw a second line to make the inside of the right arm. Remember to draw lightly so that you can erase the parts that go over top of each other later.

Make two upside down "U" shapes at the bottom of the left arm and the bottom of the body. Draw one more small curved line that starts at the left arm's elbow and curves down towards the upside down "U" shape that you just drew.

Step 4 – Things Are Coming Together

Can you spot the differences here between this picture and the last step? Let me point out the differences in the cartoon tiger and then you can go in and add the details yourself. For the head pay attention to these areas: the top of the head, eyes, nose and mouth.

For the body you will need to add the hand paws, the back feet and the tail. Pay special attention to the tail and how it is drawn so it looks like it is over top of the back right foot.

That's almost all the details that you need to add to the cartoon tiger as far as the body goes. Great job! In the next step will finish this guy off.

Step 5 -- The Final Details

There are two small details a need to finish off for the body. First draw the inside of the ears and then add a horizontal line to the middle of the tail so that it looks like it's wrapping around the body.

Now add some stripes to you cartoon tiger. These are pretty easy because there just curved triangles. You can follow the design of the stripes in the example picture or you can create your own stripe design - it’s up to you.