Welcome back to Draw with Brian.
Since Halloween was right around the corner, I thought it would be fun to draw a simple, happy jack-o’-lantern that anyone can follow along with.
Grab your pencil, stylus, pen, or crayon — and let’s turn a basic pumpkin shape into a glowing Halloween character.
Transcript
Hi everyone, I’m Brian. Welcome to Draw with Brian, and happy Halloween!
Since it is Halloween, I thought we could draw a fun little jack-o’-lantern together. So if you’d like to draw along with me, grab your paper and your pencil, pen, crayon — whatever you’ve got — and let’s get into it.
I think I’m going to use the pencil tool today, since that’s what we’d normally have on paper. Let’s see what it defaults to… that’s not bad.
Jack-o’-lanterns — at least in America — are made out of pumpkins. I don’t think that was always the case, but today it is. They come in different sizes and shapes. Some are more round, some more oblong, some almost squared off. But for our purposes, we’re going to draw a nice round shape.
So there’s our pumpkin.
Pumpkins are vining fruit, so we usually have a bit of vine at the top that’s been cut off. Let’s add that in.
And pumpkins aren’t perfectly smooth, are they? They’ve got those vertical ridges. So let’s lightly sketch in some contour lines that follow the curve of the pumpkin.
That’s not a bad start.
Now what kind of jack-o’-lantern do we want? Happy? Scary? I think I’m going to go with happy — I feel pretty happy today. I hope you’re having a good day too.
Let’s loosely sketch in some eyes. Maybe we leave a little bit of pumpkin at the top instead of cutting straight across. That gives us some fun personality.
For the nose, I’m a traditionalist — we’ll go with a triangle.
For the mouth, instead of something scary, let’s make it friendly. Maybe leave a little tooth here, another one there. There we go.
You might notice this stylus is pressure-sensitive. If I press lightly, I get a lighter line. If I press harder, I get a darker one. And if I angle it, I can get broader shading strokes.
Alright. I like that. That’s a happy pumpkin.
Now think about perspective. Where are we looking from? If we’re slightly above him, we should be able to see some of the inside where the pumpkin has been carved.
So along the top edges of the eyes and mouth, we’ll show a bit of thickness — pumpkins aren’t thin, after all.
Those interior lines are lighter, because they’re subtle.
Now let’s color him in.
Pumpkins are orange… maybe a nice rich orange. Oh yeah, I like that.
We’ll shade around those contour lines a bit. If you were working digitally, you could use separate layers and hide the black lines later — but we’re not worrying about that right now.
Inside the pumpkin is more yellow than orange, so let’s grab a warmer yellow tone for the carved areas.
Shade that in. You can hold your pencil like you’re writing, or angle it for broader shading — whatever feels comfortable.
Now let’s add some deeper orange shading around the outside to give him some form. I used colored pencils a lot growing up — started with crayons like most people, but eventually graduated to colored pencils. I’ve still got some physical ones somewhere.
Alright, now for the fun part.
If there’s a candle inside, the carved areas will glow bright yellow. So let’s grab a really bright yellow and color the inside of the eyes and mouth. Don’t be afraid to go slightly outside the lines — that can help create a glowing effect.
Oh yeah, I like that.
Let’s darken the stem a bit — maybe a slightly green tone to show it’s freshly cut.
And there we go.
A quick little jack-o’-lantern you can sketch and maybe hang on the fridge. You don’t even have to start with black outlines if you don’t want to — you could build it directly with color.
I hope you enjoyed drawing along with me. I hope your jack-o’-lantern turns out great, and I hope everyone has a safe and happy Halloween.
Until next time!
You can explore more drawing tutorials in the Draw with Brian series.
To learn more about my books and artwork, visit bdcrowell.com.
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