How to Draw a Cartoon Shark
in 5 Easy Steps

Drawing a cartoon shark is very easy even if you have never sketched one before. Do you want to create scary looking shark drawings in minutes? ...Yes? Great! Because in this cartoon lesson you will learn how to draw a shark with 5 simple steps that anyone can do!

But first, especially if you have never drawn one before, it's a great idea to look at the pictures of real life sharks and take a mental note of this animal's features. After all, no one truly wants to face head to head with this big scary fish just to make some nice cartoon sketches!

Shark's Picture Study

The first thing that comes to people's mind when thinking of sharks is their distinctive dorsal fins that look like the shape of sails (1). Next are two muscular pectoral fins (2) that are of very similar shapes again, but this time horizontally attached to front bottom of shark's body. Now many people might not notice, but this big fish also has another one pair of smaller size fins located at the back, called Pelvic fins (3), followed by a tiny vertical anal fin at the bottom and a second dorsal fin at the top. Its tail is called Caudal Fin (4) and the upper half is normally a little bigger than the lower half.

cartoon shark picture

By the way, have you noticed that this animal has a very streamlined body with flat bottom that somewhat look like torpedoes/ or submarines? Another very distinctive feature to include when you draw a cartoon shark is its Gill openings (5) just before pectoral fins. And probably the last thing to take into account is its wide mouth (6) which is just under the eye level. If you want to see a detail study of shark's physical structure click here, then return back to learn how to draw a shark.

Cartoon Shark Drawings Step by Step

Step 1: sketch a line at about 30 degrees. Than draw a perfect oval to establish front part of shark's body. cartoon shark drawings step 1

Step 2: Now divide the line into two halfs, then into quarter. From the point where you located the quarter, sketch a line to the right for tail direction. You can now sketch one big triangle about half as long as the oval for the tail, one for upper part and another smaller one for lower part of caudal fin. cartoon shark drawings step 2

Step 3: with all basic shapes drawn, you can now erase all the doted lines we used as framework. Next, sketch two more triangles for dorsal fins and 3 V shapes for pectoral and pelvic fins. Note how I decided not to draw the small anal fin, as I found it better to keep this shark drawing simple. cartoon shark drawings step 3

Step 4: now you can start drawing a wicked-evil eye. Start with a curve and a V shape for the outlining of the eye. Then add a circle in the middle as illustrated below. This cartoon shark also has a wide open mouth waiting for that next pray, so give it some big nice curves too. cartoon shark drawings step 4

Step 5: ...Awesome! You are done with basic shapes. Now is the big moment- time to develop your cartoon shark's character! I drew dozens of scary teeth, added gills, a dot in the eye (this made the shark look even more evil), and basically just refined all the curves and other details. cartoon shark drawings step 5

Step 6: I just love coloring things, don't you? Sharks often have a grayish skin color, but you are not limited to just boring grays. I chose a light blue with some purple as shadow colors for my cartoon shark. What did you choose? cartoon shark