How to draw crocodile skin

Crocodile skin is definitely one of the most high-end fashion textures you can use in your fashion sketches. In this tutorial, you will learn an easy technique to draw crocodile skin that will help you bring class extravagance to your collections. Use it for bags, shoes, belts and why not even for clothes. Enjoy!

9/10

20 min

drawing paper
pencil
eraser
markers
colored pencils
white gel pen

Step 1: Draw the outlines

No matter if you’re drawing clothes or accessories you should always start with clean outlines. Draw a bag or download the bag template used in this tutorial.

Step 2: Base color

Next, we will add the base color of the bag. Usually, crocodile skin is a dark green or a brownish shade but if you feel creative you’re welcome to experiment with pink, purple, blue shades…
Color the metal parts in a different color.

Step 3: Color variation

Plain green would not only be boring but also not realistic. Take pastels or color pencils and bring some color variation to your illustration. Don’t overdo it.

Try to separate the different plans of the bag. The front from the side. The handles from the body. Work slowly section by section.

Step 4: Draw the shadows

Grab a darker shade of your base color and add some shading. Think of all the parts that are over another part. Everywhere you have overlapping there will be a cast shadow. Pay attention to the tag and the handles.

Step 5: Big guidelines

Crocodile skin is divided into two areas – big particles and small particles. In this step, we will set where each area will take place.
Use parallel lines that are not perfectly straight nor perfectly parallel to each other to cover the side.  Make sure you leave areas where there are no lines.

Step 6: Drawing the big particles

Draw rectangles with curved edges in-between the “parallel” lines. Notice that the rows vary in height.

Try to place the round corner rectangles aligned

Step 7: Small guidelines

Draw vertical guidelines for the small particles.

Step 8: Drawing the small particles

Now it’s time to fill the blank areas with the small particles. They start bigger at the edges and get smaller in the middle. Use ellipses and circles.

Step 9: The bag front

Follow the same steps and do the front of the bag. This time change the orientation of the crocodile skin and draw the guidelines vertical instead of horizontal. Remember that you don’t have perfectly straight lines!

To speed up your process after drawing the vertical guidelines just cross them with horizontal ones. Then soften the edges od some of the rectangles that you just made. Done!

Step 10: Finish the front

Add the small particles to the blank areas. Allow the shapes to vary in size and roundness.

Step 11: Add highlights

The crocodile skin is a texture with some shine to it. Take a lighter color or a white gel pen and add some highlights here and there. Place highlights only to the big particles and follow their shape!

Now that your crocodile skin bag looks good it’s time to add some final details to the rest of the bag. In the “How to draw gold” tutorial you will learn how to give the metal a realistic touch.

Fashion illustrations don’t need to be perfectly realistic but you should make sure that the viewer is seeing your design the way you have imagined it.  Hopefully, this step-by-step tutorial has helped you express your creative ideas better!

Happy drawing!