How to Draw A Cartoon Hippo. Hippos are some of the most impressive animals in the African desert!. These huge creatures enjoy lounging in the water and basking in the sun, but they can also be dangerous if provoked.
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However, they are incredibly cute even as children, and in this tutorial on how to draw a cartoon hippo, we are introducing a kid’s version of it!
The 6 steps in this guide will walk you through different steps that will show you just how easy it can be to recreate this adorable hippo! You will also realize how much fun it can be.
How to Draw A Cartoon Hippo
Step 1
This pattern starts by outlining the head of this cute hippo!
Hippos have fairly distinctive head and face shapes, and while this is a cartoonish representation, we’ll still keep them realistically proportioned.
The top of the head is rounded, and two small curved ears sprout from the sides. The jaw and the bottom of the head are also drawn with some curved lines, as shown in the reference image.
For the upper part of the mouth, we’ll create a nice smile by adding wavy curved lines above the jawline.
Step 2
In this next step of our guide on drawing a cartoon hippo, we will add some facial features for this adorable hippo.
First, draw some oval shapes with curved line details on the inside edges for the big nostrils on the nose.
Next, add some small rounded square shapes on the roof of the mouth for some teeth.
Next, we will focus on the eyes, which are detailed enough to give this hippo a nice facial expression.
The eyes are rounded with a black circle within a slightly larger circle.
Then we added curved lines between and above the eyes to complete the facial expression. Do your best to follow the contact image as near as feasible for this step!
Step 3
In this third step, we’ll move away from the face and add some front legs to the cartoon hippo drawing.
Real hippos have relatively short, stocky legs; we’ll be true to that in this presentation.
Use some gently curved lines to outline the legs. The knees are quite curved with some line detail around them to show how they bend.
Finally, for this step, we’ll add toenails on the feet. A hippo’s toenails are quite thick and rounded, and that’s how we will draw them in this step.
Once the legs and feet are ready, we can move on to the fourth part of the guide!
Step 4
Now it’s time to add the body for this hippo! This will be an easy look to draw, but it will help bring this design together nicely.
First, we’ll draw the belly of this hippopotamus. This consists of a curved line with a smaller curve at the end.
We will also see one of the hind legs on the other side of the body under the belly.
We can draw the hippopotamus’ back with a single, large, curved line starting from the ear. Then we’re ready to add the final details and elements in the next step of the guide!
Step 5
Before we get to the final stage of this guide on how to draw a cartoon hippo, let’s add the rest of the outline first.
That means we’re going to pull the back leg. This leg looks quite similar to the front legs but is slightly more bent.
Otherwise, it will also be short and blunt, with small thick toenails at the end.
With this final stage drawn, you can then add some personal touches! These may contain some background information.
To keep the background realistic, you can look for some African wilderness images for inspiration.
You can opt for a more stylized background, so get creative and see what happens!
Step 6
Our final step on this cartoon hippo drawing is to top it off with some color! In our reference image, we showed you how to colorize this design.
We used different shades of light gray to color most of the hippos. With these different shades, you can create shades and textures for the drawing to make it look even better.
However, how you color this design is up to you! You can use many different colors for this design, and it all depends on your personal preference.
You can also change the tools and artistic media you use, so have fun experimenting to see what you get!
Your Cartoon Hippo Drawing is Finished!
