How to draw: A Centipede

It is time we learned to draw the creepy crawlies. These have always fascinated me, but even more so after I wrote and illustrated my first children's novel. In today's blog I am going to show you how to draw a centipede, paying close attention to getting the detail right that makes this creature so creepy. We then use a combination of media to colour our picture, namely pens and colouring pencils. This is more fun than it would appear at first glance.

You will need a sheet of paper and a pencil to start your drawing with.

Start by drawing two curved parallel lines on the page with rounded 'caps' on each end.

Draw in the two feelers and the two extra long legs at the back of the centipede.

Divide the body into segments.

Draw a pair of legs on each segment.

Draw dimensional depth on one side of the centipede.

Divide the legs into segments. I started this is pencil for demonstrations purposes only, but it is unnecessary to do this. It is much simpler to do this directly in pen, as it saves a lot of time and repetition.

The feelers also need to be segmented.

When redrawing in pen, make sure to form each segment separately, or it will not look real.

I used a Faber Castell Artist's Pitt Pen with a Fine point to draw the centipede with.

Erase all the pencil markings.

I switched to a brush point and coloured the legs 'belly' and feelers.

Then I coloured the body darker, leaving a white line where the light reflects off the centipede.

This reflection was coloured with a very pale yellow.

I then made it a little less obvious.

The setting, or background, was done in colouring pencils.

Start with a dark shadow under the centipede.

Give it a neutral surface to walk over. Do not colour this surface too uniform. Leaving light and dark patches make it seem uneven and more natural.

A couple of colour patches in three different colours create the illusion of foliage.

The final drawing.

Marietjie Uys (Miekie) is a published author. You can buy my books here:
You can purchase Designs By Miekie 1 here.
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