Most people start a drawing with a sense of dread. You want to draw a rabbit, but you end up with something that looks like a lumpy russet potato with toothpicks sticking out of it. It’s frustrating. Honestly, the biggest hurdle to sketching a bunny isn’t a lack of talent; it’s that we try to draw what we think a rabbit looks like rather than the actual underlying physics of the animal.
Rabbits are basically just a series of overlapping water balloons.
If you look at the work of classic animators or wildlife illustrators like Preston Blair, you’ll notice they never start with the nose or the whiskers. They start with the weight. A bunny is a prey animal. It’s built to spring. That means the center of gravity is all in the haunches. If you get the "egg" of the ribcage and the "sphere" of the rump wrong, the whole thing falls apart before you even get to the cute ears.
The Core Geometry of Sketching a Bunny
Stop trying to draw lines. Draw volumes.
When you begin sketching a bunny, you need to lay down a light, almost invisible foundation. Use a 2H pencil or just barely touch the paper with a standard HB. Think about two primary shapes. First, a tilted oval for the chest. Second, a larger, rounder circle that overlaps the back half of that oval. This represents the massive muscle groups in the hind legs.
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It looks weird. You’ve basically drawn a lopsided snowman. That’s fine.
One thing people get wrong is the neck. Rabbits don't really have visible necks when they’re huddling or sitting. Their heads sit directly against the shoulder blades. If you draw a long neck, you’re drawing a llama, not a cottontail. Keep the head—a smaller, slightly squashed circle—tucked close to that front oval.
Why Ears are Tricky
The ears are the "expression" of the rabbit. But here is the secret: they aren't just stuck onto the top of the head like stickers. They have a base. Think of the ear as a rolled-up piece of paper that’s flared at the top. There’s a thickness to the "root" of the ear where it meets the skull.
In a standard European Rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus), the ears are roughly the same length as the head. If you’re sketching a Jackrabbit, obviously, those proportions go out the window and you’re looking at ears that are significantly longer than the skull itself. Pay attention to the direction they’re pointing. If one is cocked toward the viewer and the other is turned away, you create instant depth. It makes the drawing feel three-dimensional rather than a flat icon.
Nailing the "Bunny Crunch"
Rabbits have a unique posture. They "scrunch."
When a rabbit is at rest, its spine curves in a very specific arch. If you look at skeletal diagrams from natural history archives, you'll see the spine goes up from the neck and peaks right above the hips. This is why a sitting bunny looks like a pyramid with rounded corners.
Don't forget the paws.
Front paws are tiny. They’re dainty. They usually tuck right under the chest. The back paws, however, are massive levers. When you’re sketching a bunny from the side, you often won't see the whole back foot—just the heel or the toes peeking out from under that thick thigh fur.
Fur is Not Just Scribbles
The biggest mistake beginners make is trying to draw every single hair. Don't do that. It looks messy. It looks like the rabbit is covered in spiderwebs.
Instead, think about "clumps." Fur has a direction of growth. On a rabbit, it generally flows from the nose back toward the tail. Use short, flicking strokes to indicate where the shadow is deepest—usually under the belly, behind the ears, and where the limbs meet the body. Let the highlight areas (like the top of the back) stay mostly white or very lightly shaded.
The eye is your anchor. A rabbit’s eye is located on the side of its head. It’s a large, dark orb. If you leave a tiny "sparkle" or highlight in the upper corner of the eye, the drawing instantly "wakes up." Without that highlight, it looks like a taxidermy project gone wrong.
Common Mistakes That Kill the Realism
People love to draw "U" shapes for the nose. Don't.
A rabbit’s nose is more like a very soft "Y" or a "T." It’s a vertical split. The nostrils are subtle. And the whiskers? They don't just come out of the cheeks. They grow from specific whisker pads. Keep the whiskers long and varied in length. Some should be short, some should be surprisingly long, reaching almost to the shoulder.
Also, the tail isn't a perfect circle. It’s a tuft. It’s messy. It’s a bit of fluff that follows the line of the rump.
Beyond the Basics: Different Breeds
A Netherland Dwarf looks nothing like a Flemish Giant.
When sketching a bunny of a specific breed, the proportions change drastically. Dwarfs have massive heads relative to their bodies and tiny, upright ears. Flemish Giants look like dogs with long ears; they have a much more elongated, muscular frame.
If you’re drawing a Lop rabbit, the ears shouldn't just hang straight down like heavy weights. They have a "crown"—a ridge of cartilage at the top of the head that pushes the ears out before they fall. It gives them a wider, squarer head profile.
Lighting and Depth
Value is everything.
If you have a light source coming from the top right, the bottom left of your bunny should be dark. Use a 4B or 6B pencil for these deep shadows. This "grounds" the animal. Without a shadow on the ground beneath it, your bunny is just floating in a white void. A simple, horizontal smudge of shadow under the belly makes the rabbit feel heavy and real.
Think about the texture of the ground, too. Is the bunny in tall grass? If so, the grass should overlap the paws. You shouldn't see the bottom of the feet at all. This creates a sense of environment without you having to draw an entire forest.
Final Touches and Refinement
Once you have your basic volumes and your "scrunch" posture, it's time to clean up.
Take a kneaded eraser. This is the best tool for artists because you can shape it into a point. Use it to "pull" highlights out of the fur. If you over-shaded the back, just dab it with the eraser to bring back some light.
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Check your anatomy one last time.
- Is the eye too high? (It should be roughly level with the base of the ears).
- Are the ears too thin? (They should have some width and "scoop").
- Is the back too flat? (Give it that mountain-peak curve).
Actionable Next Steps
To actually get better at sketching a bunny, you need to move beyond static photos.
- Watch slow-motion videos of rabbits moving on YouTube. Pay attention to how the "water balloon" shapes of their bodies stretch and compress.
- Practice "Gesture Drawing." Give yourself 30 seconds to draw a rabbit. You won't have time for fur or eyes. You only have time for the "scrunch." Do this 20 times.
- Study the Skull. Look up a 3D model of a rabbit skull online. Understanding where the jaw sits and how the eye socket is positioned will make your head-shapes look a thousand times more convincing.
- Invert your reference. If you're struggling, turn the photo you're drawing from upside down. This forces your brain to see shapes and shadows rather than the "idea" of a bunny.
Drawing is about seeing, not just doing. Spend more time looking at the rabbit than you do looking at your paper. The more you observe the weird, lumpy, beautiful reality of the animal, the less your sketches will look like potatoes and the more they will look like living things.