Snake skin patterns never seem to go out of style! In this beginner-friendly tutorial, you’ll learn how to draw snake skin texture in 10 easy-to-follow steps. Whether you prefer traditional or digital tools, this guide will show you an effective way to render snake skin print in different colors. Ready to enhance your designs with fantastic snake skin accessories like bags, shoes, and belts? Let’s dive in!

Step 1: Flat Base in light color
Draw the accessory you want to showcase with snake skin. Apply a flat layer of light color as a base; I’m using yellowish beige. In this example, we’ll use four shades of brown. But you can go with any other color – artificial snake skin allows for fun, bright colors like pink, blue, or neon shades.
In the example I’m using four shades of brown. If you choose a different color, make sure you have four light-to-dark shades of it.

Step 2: Draw a diamond grid
Snake skin textures vary, but we’ll focus on a simple repeating diamond pattern here. Using a brown pencil, mark a large scale diagonal grid. I recommend to keep the diamonds similar in shape and size, but don’t worry about perfection – slight irregularities look more natural and will prevent your fashion design from looking stiff.

Step 3: Cover with Thick, uneven lines
Time to cover up the grid. Our goal is to create a more messy, thicker and wobbly version of it.
Choose a direction in which your hand is comfortable moving (for me it’s up and down at 45 degrees angle) and do all the cover up with the same motion.
Notice how the thickness of the darker color varies. Also, there is no trace of straight lines. Keep your hand loose!

Step 4: Medium Brown Diamonds
Choose a medium brown shade and draw messy diamonds, leaving a light beige border all around. Remember, when drawing any type of animal prints, we’re not aiming for perfect symmetry and perfection! The shapes must be loose and not look too intentional. The lighter border width should be roughly the same as the dark brown grid.

Step 5: A darker center
Add one more diamond shape in the center in a slightly darker color. It’s best to work with back and forward motion of the hand as opposed to circular motion. This way, the scales will appear more seamless when we get to them.

Step 6: Draw the snake scales
Without adding proper scales, the print would be closer to a plaid pattern than an animal print. To create the illusion of scales, grab a dark brown color and draw a tiny mesh across the pattern.
To keep the pattern consistent, may want to use a ruler and hatch over several areas at once.

Step 7: Round up the snake scales
At the moment we have a grid. Let’s make it look more like actual scales. With the same brown color, round of the top corner of some of the scales. You need to tweak around 1/3 of the scales in each diamond. The eye of the viewer will make up the rest.
Select random scales to round up and don’t follow any specific order. Step away often to check how you like the results and don’t overwork it – less is more.

Step 8: Refine the darkest area
With the newly made tidy scales, the darkest areas of your drawing may begin to look a bit too soft and unordered. Go back with the darkest brown color create sharper square shapes here and there to sharpen the fuzziness.

Step 9: Make them shine
It’s time to make the scales appear more 3D. Get a white pencil or gel pen and round up some corners, this time with white. You’re focusing on the same top area of each scale.
It is very easy to overdo this step, so every couple of lines step away and check how your drawing looks. Less than 10% of the scales should have this effect for a natural look.

Step 10: Add shading and highlights
The final step is to add some shading and highlights to your fashion sketch. If you use digital drawing app, you can easily do that with lowered opacity of the layer. If you’re more of a traditional artist, use colored pencils or watercolor to keep the underlying print still visible.

In this tutorial I shared with you one of the simplest ways to draw snake skin texture on belts, bags, shoes or your fashion designs. If you’re looking to draw unique accessories for your collection, go ahead and explore the TEXTILES section, including ” How to Draw crocodile skin” and “How to draw cheetah print” or head to the ACCESSORIES section to learn how to draw different types of fashion accessories.
Happy drawing!
