Sometimes it's not zombies and vampires that scare us, but characters from childhood stories. Even though objectively they're not that scary, there's something in them that brings us chills even in our adult lives. The Winged Monkeys from "The Wizard of Oz" are certainly that type of character. Let's learn how to draw one!
1. Prepare for Drawing
This is the most overlooked part of drawing projects. Beginners often "strongly wish" they could draw something, so they just try to do it. Professionals, on the other hand, practice before drawing something new. You can't draw something well if you've never drawn it before!
Step 1
Find a lot of references of jumping monkeys and sketch them quickly. Try to capture the main rhythm of the movement, avoiding details. Use a small scale.
Step 2
Now switch to a variety of references of monkeys. Practice the details, but keep sketching quickly, without hesitation.
Step 3
Time for wings. Draw flying birds, paying special attention to the placement of feathers. Try to find a way to simplify it; understand how it works. If you need some help, try my complex tutorial about drawing wings.
Step 4
Finally, you can sketch a few poses of the flying monkey. Draw only the rhythm of the body, nothing else.
2. Plan the Skeleton
Step 1
Choose one pose from your practice sketches. Now:
- If you're drawing digitally, copy it to a new file, resize to your preferred size, and lower the opacity. Keep drawing on a new layer.
- If you're drawing traditionally, redraw the pose on a new sheet of paper on a bigger scale. Make the drawing subtle—these are just guide lines, not a part of the final picture.
Step 2
Build a simplified skeleton of the monkey out of sticks. It's similar to a human skeleton, so you can learn a bit about it in my other tutorial—how to draw a human in a simple way.
Don't forget about the wings!
Warning: you can draw freely and even sloppily until I tell you to stop. Don't be afraid of mistakes, crooked lines, or a general mess—we'll fix it later, I promise!
Step 3
Sketch the torso and the head.
Step 4
Use the trick described in my tutorial about drawing 3D forms to give depth to the chest and head.
Step 5
Draw the hands and feet. Even though monkeys have hand-like feet, they're not 100% hands.
Step 6
Add the fingers and "toes".
3. Build the Body
Step 1
Have you ever seen a drawing dummy? Their "joints" are spherical, and they don't only allow rotation—they also define the width of the part. We can use them here, too.
Hips are very complicated, so you can use two or even one sphere in their place.
Step 2
Draw the open jaw. It can be made of two halves of a sphere!
Step 3
Add some details on the face.
Step 4
Take a closer look at the hands and feet, and draw spherical joints for every finger.
Step 5
Once the whole shape is established, you can emphasize it with outlines:
4. Draw the Wings
Step 1
Start with the marginal coverts, or "wing arms", as I like to call them.
Step 2
Add another row of coverts.
Step 3
One more...
Step 4
Now draw a place for the main feathers: secondaries and primaries.
Step 5
Time to draw the actual feathers. Start with very simple, round, symbolic ones...
... then switch to more elongated feathers.
Step 6
Big birds often have slotted primaries. Here's how to draw them:
5. Finish the Drawing
Step 1
If you're a traditional artist, you probably have a mess of lines on your sheet right now. Don't worry, that was the plan! To continue, take something making dark lines and emphasize the parts of the sketch that are important to you. Then place a new sheet of paper at the top. Can you see the lines below? If not, use thinner paper or make the lines even darker.
If you're drawing digitally, simply merge all the previous layers and make that new layer almost transparent.
Step 2
Using the lines below as a base, draw all the details. Be careful and slow now—this is the final version.
Step 3
When you're done, you can stress some of the more important lines to make the drawing more interesting.
Good Job!
That was a lot of work, wasn't it? If you enjoyed it, try some more of my tutorials. And if you had problems at any point, you can solve them by going through my How to Learn to Draw series. See you next time!
