How to Draw a Sword (8 Easy Steps)
This tutorial shows how to draw a sword in eight easy steps. It provides nice illustrated examples and detailed instructions.
The focus of this guide is on drawing a simple but cool looking sword. As most of it consists of straight lines the tutorial can be great for beginner artists who wish to practice making those. However, if you are just looking to just draw something for fun you can optionally use a ruler to help you.
The tutorial also teaches how to apply some basic shading to make the drawing appear less flat and more thee dimensional as well as suggestions on what colors to use and why.
Although the design of the sword is very simple and does not require you to erase any parts of the drawing in between the different steps, you should still start the tutorial in pencil and make light lines just in case you happen to make a mistake (especially if not using a ruler). You can darken your lines later on once you have all parts of the sword outlined.
Step 1 – Draw the Blade of the Sword
First outlined the sword’s blade. Give it a pointy tip and make it of even width throughout the rest of it’s length.
Step 2 – Draw the Guard
Onto the blade add the guard (the part that of the sword prevents the hand from slipping onto the blade). In this case it has a fairly simple shape. Draw it as a long and narrow rectangle.
Step 3 – Draw the Grip
Going down from the guard draw the grip (the handle of the sword). Make it of even thickness throughout it’s entire length.
Step 4 – Draw the Pommel
For the last major part of the sword add the pommel (at the end of the grip). This part prevents the weapon from slipping out of the hand. You can make its shape as shown in the example. Unlike the rest of the sword which is draw with mainly straight lines and sharp corners you can make this part fairly smooth and rounded on most of it’s sides.
Step 5 – Draw the Edge
With all major parts of the sword outlined you can move on to it’s smaller details. Start by adding the edge of the blade. Do this by first creating a shape similar to the blade (but smaller) inside of it’s outline. Next, project a line from each corner of the the outer shape to the corresponding corners of the inner shape.
Step 6 – Draw the Grip Wrapping
Show the wrapping on the sword’s grip by making a series of angled lines along it’s length. Once you’ve added these you should be nearly done with the line drawing part of the tutorial.
At this stage check your drawing to make sure that everything looks right and if so, trace over it with darker pencil lines or a thin black marker. Otherwise first make any corrections you feel are required.
Step 7 – Color the Sword
To color the sword the following can be good options:
- Blade – grey (to give it a metallic look)
- Guard/Pommel – yellow (to make them look like gold)
- Grip – brown (to make it the wrapping look like leather)
You can simply use a regular pencil for the grey of the blade and anything you like or have on hand for the rest (markers, paints, colored pencils, etc…).
Step 8 – Add Shading
You may notice that the sword with just the basic colors looks a little flat. To fix this give it some simple shading as shown in the example above. You can use a regular pencil to create these.
This drawing is done as though the light is coming from the upper left of the sword. This means the areas that are facing in that directions should be the lightest and the ones facing away should be the darkest.
Based on the above place the shadows as follows:
- Blade – lightly darken it’s middle area and further darken the bottom facing parts of the edge
- Hilt (the guard, grip and pommel) – darken the lower half of each of it’s parts
You can create all of the shadows by simply darkening the corresponding areas using a regular pencil.
Conclusion
By giving the sword the parts and shapes that are characteristic of such a weapon as well as appropriate colors and the correct shading you can create a simple but cool looking drawing.
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