Learn to Make a Donkey Drawing!

Being a friend to mankind since forever, we are going to create a donkey drawing to honor this four legged friend of ours in this lesson on how to draw a donkey!

When I think of a donkey, I think of a miniature horse. However, when it comes to learning how to draw a donkey, we will be focused on illustrating fur more than anything else.

Unlike a horse where you focus on the muscular built, short fur can be just as challenging as you attempt to mold it into the form of a donkey!

Not only that, but you will need to figure out methods for doing fur of opposing colors because there are white spots on the eyes, nose, and underbelly of the animal.

However, when you follow along, you will discover that the process is not as hard as you imagine. So let's open up your digital art software and let's get started!

1.  Gesture drawing

In order to draw a donkey correctly, you need to start with a gesture sketch that focuses on proportions and form. It would be a good idea to look at many pictures of a donkey so you get a sense of the overall shapes involved.

Using your digital stylus, start to create a quick gesture sketch of a donkey drawing! Use basic geometric shapes to outline where the pivot points of the arms and legs are. Then, fill in the body and the head.

Also fill in quick ideas of where the bones are located. Each angle of the bones can help you further define the overall form!

Of course, measure every stroke as well. Think about how many heads will comprise the body. The main proportions you should focus on are the large head and the thick neck.

Another sense of proportions is the square body and how the donkey stands. You will realize that the legs are exactly one body length from the belly.

2. The base for your donkey drawing

This section will require you to create a solid transparent object. Just fill in the outline created by your gesture drawing.

Using a solid brush at 100% pressure, create a new layer underneath your gesture drawing and then fill it in with a dark base color.

Once that is done, you can merge your layers together. From here, you can begin blocking in muscle mass and form on your donkey.

Use a chalk brush to give you a good texture for blocking in fur and form. Think about the areas that define a donkey.

For example, there are white patches around the eyes, the nose, and the underbelly. Sometimes, depending on your specie, you will get white patches on the limbs as well.

3. Draw a donkey with the smudge tool

At this point in time, everything should be ready for you to start working on the details of your donkey drawing! The big picture in this step is that you will not be using your paint brush. Instead, you will use the smudge brush.

But make sure you use the chalk designed smudge brush for it. The jagged edges of the chalk head will create little filaments of fur from your gesture lines.

As you smudge, control it to smudge in the direction of the fur. For example, smudge gently around the outline of the donkey to get small simple furs sticking out.

You need to do this for the white patches around the eyes, the belly, and the nose. As long as you're smudging in the proper direction, fur will naturally come out.

You may also switch back to your brush tool and block in additional colors or shapes to be smudged. Either way, the goal here is to use your gesture lines and blocked shapes to create fur.

4. Draw a donkey with realistic lighting

When you have most of the fur done, it's time to add some light and shadows to your donkey drawing! First, you need to preserve the transparency of your donkey drawing.

That way, any additional painting that you will need to do will not cross outside of the shape's boundaries.

There are many ways to do this step. If your program supports it, create a new layer and turn it into a clipping mask. From there, set the transparency to 50% and work on the shadows.

Otherwise, you can just duplicate the donkey layer, paint on top of it, and then adjust the layer's transparency to show the details of the previous donkey layer.

The other method is just to paint right on the donkey layer if you're comfortable with your skills. To retain as much of the details as possible, opt to use the dodge and burn tools rather than the paint brush.

This should allow you retain most of the details while still creating lightened and shadowed areas.

I hope you enjoy this simple lesson on creating your own donkey drawing. I look forward to your creation in the site's gallery. Submit it when you can!

Remember, keep motivated and keep practicing!

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