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How to Draw a Realistic Seahorse, Spiny Seahorse

Step 1.
 Start off by picking your pencils. You could effectively follow along
with this tutorial with just about any pencil or combination of pencils. I
used a 3H pencil for sketching, light shading, and details and a 3B
pencil for dark/textured shading.

Step 2.
Start off with basic shapes to represent your seahorse's body. Try to
use rounded shapes, circles and ovals. Sketch as lightly as you can. I
used a 3H pencil for my initial sketch.

Step 3.
 Start lightly sketching in features, working your way from top to
bottom. Don't worry too much about being perfect or copying
everything exactly as I have it here. Make your seahorse unique.
Draw a basic sort of grid on the seahorse's body. This will you draw
on some of the torso features.

Step 4.
 Sketch in the torso features down to the dorsal fin. Sketch in some
divisions down the spiral of the tail.

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Step 5.
 Sketch in the rest of the seahorse. Erase any lines that you don't
think you'll need.

Step 6.
 Start defining your your outlines with bolder lines. Use the same
pencil but don't press down too hard. Just make refine your lines.
Start with the head and work your way downwards

Step 7.
 Refine your torso lines. It may help you later on if you leave you
original "grid" instead of erasing it.

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Step 8.
 Finish up your line work. Try to make sure that the seahorse's
outline is closed and defined before you move on to the
background.

Step 9.
 I started roughly shading in the background here with a 3B pencil.
Any soft pencil will do the trick just be sure to shade with the sides
of the pencil lead and not the tip. Make your pencil strokes as
broad as you can.

Step 10.
 Roughly shade in the rest of the background. Try to make your
shading even but don't obsess about making it perfectly smooth.

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Step 11.
 Blend in you background using a blending stump, paper towel,
cloth, or any other blending tool. The background doesn't have
to be perfectly smooth but you should try to make your pencil
strokes less noticeable.

Step 12.
 Here I used a 3B pencil to make the outline around the
seahorse's head darker. I then added a rough layer of shading
to the head. Don't blend this layer of shading in. It will help you
creat more realistic textures.

Step 13.
 I switched back to a 3H pencil here and started adding details
to the seahorse's head starting with its snout. If you are using
a hard pencil like a 3H or 2H you'll find that it's a bit easier to
shade smoothly especially if you are using smooth paper.

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Step 14.
 Finish adding detailed shading to the rest of the seahorse's
head. Try and define the outline even more as you add
shading

Step 15.
 I used a 3B pencil here to add a few layers of shading to the
background surrounding the seahorse's head. You can use a
blending stump if you need to smooth out your shading even
more.

Step 16.
 Using a 3B pencil I added some rough shading to the top half
of the torso. I also used a 3B pencil here to darken the
seahorse's outline.

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Step 17.
 I went back to a 3H pencil here to add more detailed shading.
Try to make your pencil strokes follow the faint "grid" on the
torso. Try not to just scribble in your shading.

Step 18.
 I switched to a 3B pencil here to shade the top right corner of
the background. You can do whatever you want with the
background and shade it as you see fit. This is just my way of
shading a basic background.

Step 19.
 Following the same steps as before, I continued by roughly
shading the next portion of the torso. Again, try to make your
shading follow the original guidelines instead of just scribbling
your shading in.

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Step 20.
 Define the shading with a 3H pencil. Remember to define your
outlines some more as well.

Step 21.

 I used a 3B pencil again to go over my background. Try to

make your sections of shading blend seamlessly into one
another. Use a blending stump if you need to.

Step 22.
 Add rough shading to the rest of the seahorse. Darken the
outline a bit as well.

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Step 23.
 Add some more detailed shading to the tail. Define the
outline some more as well.

Step 24.
 Shade in the rest of the background now. Try to make
your shading seamless again.

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Step 25.

For the rest of the drawing, I used a 3B pencil to add

texture and smooth out my background even more.You
can lightly go over areas that seem too rough with a
blending stump and areas that seem too dark with a
kneaded eraser.

Step 26.

Refine the shading on the rest of the drawing. One of the

most important aspects of the drawing that will add to its
realism is the seahorse's outline. Make sure that you
outline is as crisp as possible and that it blends into the
background seamlessly. I ended up using up an entire 3B
pencil for this drawing but it was totally worth it! Let me
know how you do and if you have any questions!

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