Ever wanted to draw Star Wars characters and vehicles just like the professional comic book artists? In this step-by-step series, Star Wars artists and illustrators show you how to draw some of the most beloved characters in the saga.
Star Wars illustrator Nicole Falk explains with these easy-to-follow steps on how to draw a wampa family trimming the tree during the holiday season.
Step One:
Draw lightly with pencil all the basic shapes that make up an adult wampa, a Christmas tree, a little wampa and a misfit C-3PO in the box. Draw ovals, circles, rectangles, and connecting lines. This will help place where the body, arms, head and everything else will go. This is also where you decide the outline for your pose.
Step Two:
Next sketch in the shapes of the wampa, and everyone else on top of your original outline. Draw a rounder, teddy bear-like shape for the wampa. Add in his tusks, same with the little wampa. Make a shapelier Christmas tree. Start to draw in a body shape for the C-3PO in the box, give him a Santa hat and an elf collar! For his arms, since he is a droid, there are some nice easy lines to follow like more straight lines and rectangles.
Step Three:
Here you can start adding in the lines that create a more detailed and 3-D look. For starters, draw in a slightly curved line behind the entire drawing, about 2/3 down on the page. This is to separate your wall from your ground. Now your characters look like they are in an environment, and not just floating in space. For the big wampa, add in his little hair on top and make his tusks bumpier on the edges. Later when we add lines through them it will make sort of a ring pattern on each tusk. Make his body softer by rounding those lines and shaping a body form, add in his chubby fingers. Do these steps to the little wampa as well. The C-3PO in the box will need his face drawn out. Follow the lines to create his eyes, nose and mouth, the extra lines on the side of his head and under his chin to create depth. Make his arms appear more droid like and less human by sectioning them at different points. The body is the shape of a bouncy coil, so just zigzag some lines over the curved lines you had before. The Christmas tree could use some more form to it! Try giving it some more detail on the edges, you can design your tree however you like! Add some presents underneath as well, some in front and some in back.
Step Four:
Here is where you can add in a lot of the detail. On the wampas, add in some hair lines to give them a fuzzier and furrier hairdo and draw in their faces with eyes, eyebrows, nose and mouths. Give them whatever expression you want, the example here shows the big wampa being surprised by how lovely the star he just put on top of the tree looks in all its shining glory! Add in those tusk lines, and make the fingers and toes more detailed. C-3PO needs some eyes and add in some lines to that zigzag body too. This will make C-3PO look like he just popped out of the box. Turn the box into an R2-D2 by adding in some of his details, this is done with just some more rectangles and circles. The Christmas tree can be trimmed now, add in some lights and fun ornaments. Also to make the presents look wrapped draw some ribbon around them going horizontal and vertical on each package and shape. Next draw a wallpaper design. I did a striped background for this piece. And lastly, some shading will help put those characters on the floor better. Since the adult wampa is reaching, one foot is lifted, so the shading shouldn't touch that raised foot. Same thing for the C-3PO in a box, he just sprung out so he is high in the air so place the shading further away from him. Anything else that is directly on the floor can have shading placed right underneath them, like the presents and the little wampa. Also have him playing with some cool action figures!
Step Five:
Next go over the pencil with some dark pencil or ink. Use a pen, a dark-colored pencil or a fine tip marker. Be careful, stay on those lines, after all your hard work, keep this part clean!
Step Six:
Now you can color your wampa Christmas anyway you want. Use colored pencils, crayons, watercolors or markers. You can even color it on the computer. It's completely up to you. Don't forget things that are shaded should always be a little darker, like under the tree and under the presents and wampas. This step I did all the base colors and will add highlights (and fur) in the next step.
Step Seven:
Here I used white pen to make all the wampa fur and add some highlights. I hope you enjoyed my wampa Christmas drawing, have a happy holiday!
See all our drawing tutorials in the Star Wars Drawing Archive
