How to Draw a Cartoon Beaver
(the Easy Way)

Get busy like a beaver and learn how to draw one of these cute critters with our easy-to-follow steps. Learning how to draw a cartoon beaver couldn't be simpler, so grab your pencils and follow us down to the river bank where we’ll get better acquainted with our furry friend!

STEP-1: Let’s Get Beavering Away with a Basic Outline
These busy little critters can always be found down by the river building their lodges, dams and canals. So, let's get busy too and begin our drawing of a cartoon beaver by sketching out the basic outline. 

First of all, draw two chubby cheeks followed by the top of the head. For the body, draw a wide 'U' shape. It may not look much like a beaver yet, but once we've added a few more touches, you'll soon be making a splash with your awesome illustration!.

STEP-2: A Beaver’s Tail – Adding More Elements to our Drawing
'Wood' you believe it? Our cartoon beaver's ready for some more detail! Let's do this by adding the all-important tail -make this nice and wide and in the shape of a paddle, because this is very useful to our wildlife workers when swimming in the river or transporting building materials!

Next, let's add some ears to the top of the head (draw two upside-down 'U' shapes) and then make the top of the head jagged to represent fur. We can also add some jagged lines to those chubby cheeks and begin drawing our beaver's face by sketching in a nose and mouth. 

Next, we'll start adding our cartoon beaver's leg – draw an arc shape and a foot with two vertical lines to represent the toes.

STEP-3: Building our Cartoon Beaver's Character
Now that we've added more detail to our cute critter, let's really bring our drawing of a cartoon beaver to life by adding some more of those all-important features! Make the tail look 3D by drawing another line following the tail's outline. 

Then, draw the inside of the ears so that our wildlife workman can hear! Now, when gnawing through wood and felling trees, it's important to have a good set of teeth, right? Let's add these right now, making them nice and big as in our illustration. Our riverside handyman is really taking shape, but wait! He can't be very handy without hands, now can he? 

Draw these like two clenched fists – one seen from the side and the other facing the front – we'll discover why they're drawn in this way in the next step of our lesson in how to draw a cartoon beaver!

STEP-4: Adding the Final Details to our Dam-building Beaver
Have you ever heard of the old World War II film, The Dam Busters? Well, our cute critter is a real-life dam builder! Beavers do this to protect their families from predators and provide easy access to food during winter. They work incredibly hard and have been known to fell several trees a night! 

The next stage in learning how to draw a cartoon beaver is to add some finishing touches. Draw the eyes by sketching two sets of horizontal wavy lines one above the other. In the middle of each, draw a small circle.Remember the paws or hands we drew in the previous stage? We drew them in this manner because our wildlife worker is holding a stick. 

Add this now, remembering to make the one end nice and sharp – our busy beaver needs good tools! Next, draw a criss-cross pattern on the tail and then draw an 'L' shape at the side of one paw/hand for the elbow. Just beneath this, draw a short vertical line to meet up with the top of the leg. Talking of legs, our cartoon beaver only has one at the moment! Add the other one and there we go – our cartoon beaver is almost ready to go to work!

STEP-5: Become a Busy Beaver with Color!

The final stage in learning how to draw a cartoon beaver is also the part that's the most fun – adding color! Choose a dark brown for the outline, then get busy rubbing out any lines you don't need.

Next, using a medium brown shade, color in the outside of the tail, followed by the face, hands and body, remembering to leave our cute critter's chest area blank for now. He's looking beaver-tastic! Now, select a light yellow color for those impressive front teeth and color in the eyes and nose with black, remembering to leave a small section white to represent highlights. 

Finish off the inside of the tail with another dark brown color and then select a lighter shade of this color for our wildlife workman's stick – the tools of the trade! Finally, select and orange-brown color for our beaver's chest. You see? Learning how to draw a cartoon beaver is easy when you follow our simple steps! Why not keep busy by learning how to draw some other animals on our website?