How to Draw a Deer?

Step by step

1. Draw the body as a long oval, angled slightly.
2. Add the head as a smaller oval, connected to the body by a curved neck.
3. Sketch the legs as thin lines, bent at the knee joint (which points forward on a deer's front legs, a detail that's easy to get backward).
4. Add large, oval ears angled outward and slightly forward from the head.
5. Draw the muzzle as a rounded, slightly elongated shape at the front of the head.
6. Add a short tail, typically small and slightly raised.
7. Antlers last, only for a buck (male deer) — branching Y-shapes growing from the top of the head, with smaller branches (called tines) coming off the main branches.
8. Refine and add fur texture with short, light strokes along the body outline once the basic shape looks right.

The feature most likely to go wrong: the antlers. They should branch asymmetrically (real antlers on the same deer often aren't perfectly symmetrical), grow from a rounded base at the top of the skull, not the side, and taper toward the tips rather than staying uniformly thick.

A quick anatomy note: only male deer (bucks) grow antlers in most species; a doe (female) is drawn the same way but without them, which is a simple way to distinguish the two in a sketch.

You may also want How to Draw a Girl? or How to Draw a Horse?.

Neighbouring how-tos sit on the Drawing & Crafts topic. From the homepage you can ask a follow-up of your own — no account needed.