How to Draw an Adorable Corgi In 9 Easy Steps

I love to draw Corgis, they are definitely one of my favorite breeds! They’re so small and weirdly proportioned. So, of course, I wanted to figure out correctly how to draw such a cute animal! I know that dogs or even animals, in general, can seem hard to draw. Especially if you’re not used to it!

Generally, I draw people more often than dogs. But it’s all the same logic! In fact, I’ve made a complete Course on drawing dogs that you might want to check out here!

How can you draw an adorable Corgi? Simple. Break your subject down into simple shapes and build your drawing from there! By following this step-by-step guide, you’ll learn how to draw an adorable Corgi in no time.

I’m going to go over my whole process, with very simple steps so you can follow and not feel overburden, so let’s start!

Gather Reference Images (Good Excuse to Look At Dog Photos!)

Before we start blindly drawing something, it’s good to see and study our subject. In this case, look for tons of photos of Corgis!

We can start sketching some things on our sketchbook, but when we’re drawing something completely new, it’s good to gather some references first. In fact, I’ve created a huge blog post with over 25 websites where you can find references to use! Now, drawing a Corgi is a very specific theme, so I don’t blame you if you don’t have a Corgi right by you to serve as a reference.

If you do, lucky you! Don’t hesitate to take photos of your dogs in different positions and situations so that you can use as references for your drawings.

A good place to look for Reference Images is Pinterest. You can find almost everything there and it’s a great place to save photos that seem interesting to you. Both to serve as inspiration or to serve as a reference when studying and practicing new subjects.

Keep in mind that these photos belong to someone else and we’re only using these works for learning and not to present them as our own.

Nevertheless, reference images are important for learning and you should always use them! I dare even say, trace the shapes on top of photos that you found or took, so you can properly understand the shapes and movements of your subject.

This is a good exercise for when you’re starting to learn how to draw and I recommend to do it a bit, before jumping onto a whole drawing.

Again these are for practice purposes only, if you do decide to share these drawings, be sure to give credit to the owners of your references. Or, just keep these practices for yourself, all up to you!

And remember, you cannot draw something without looking at it. Always gather some references if it helps you learn to draw any object, person or animal!

Step by Step Process

Alright, we’ve looked for references and studied them. Now it’s time to figure out how to draw our Corgi. When drawing a new subject I like to start with very simple shapes. Nothing too complicated, just basic shapes like rectangles, circles, triangles, etc.

Here are the steps I take to Draw a Corgi:

1- Draw a big rounded Rectangle

Corgi’s bodies are very rectangular. So that’s the first shape that comes to my mind and that I put down on paper. Like a big loaf of bread from the side. With only one shape, we already have a big part of our Corgi done!

You can make your rectangle as rounded as you wish. I always like to give it some roundness right away, to appeal to the cute a fluffy side of Corgis.

2- Add a small Box on the top Corner for the Neck

Corgis are very small and disproportionate. Even though they look like it’s just a body and head, there’s still neck there and we need to draw it. This is a very small shape to help us figure out where and how the head should be!

3- Draw a Half Circle for the tail on the opposite Corner

Before drawing the head and its features, let’s add some other very simple but also very important shapes! On the opposite side of or rectangle, let’s add a half-circle. It’s very rare to see Corgis with tails, so we’re going for the stub as a tail since it’s the most common to see.

4- Add tiny squares for the paws

Corgis legs are very, very short. This is one of the features that make them look so cute. And that’s why we add such small shapes. We can barely see the paws, tiny little things underneath the body and fur.

Feel free to exaggerate your shapes according to your style and how cartoony you want your drawing to be. Depending on your taste and style, our drawings will look different from one another.

This is always a good time to experiment and try different things, so you can figure out how you like your art to look like!

5- Finally, for the head create a square shaped box and add a rounded Triangle to create the Snout

Let’s not add too much here yet. We’ll need to draw the face, but we’ll leave that for the next stage. But, if you look at what we have right now, it’s already starting to look like a dog! Just one thing missing.

6- Add some triangles for the Ears

Corgis usually have rounded tips at the end of their Ears so don’t make them too sharp! Try to create two rounded Triangle shapes next to each other on top of the previous box that we did for the Head.

We now have the General shape of our Corgi Dog. Well done! With very simple shapes, we already have something that resembles a Corgi. Now we just need to refine our drawing and clean it up.

Clean Up the Lines

7- Sketch up the fur and details!

Before doing our final lines, I like to do a second sketch, where I add more details and have a better idea where everything is and how it’s going to look.

Add Small lines for the Fuzzy Hairy parts of the Dog, like under the belly, near the legs and Neck.

Next, we add a small nose and an Eye for the Dog, you can do any shape you want, I will go with a Simple Round Eye. Feel free to add a Collar as well if you’d like! This is the perfect time to add personalized details to your dog.

You can add a collar or any other kind of accessory! Like a flower crown, a bow on the neck or tail. Let your imagination roam and try out new and different things.

Finally, we can also add some more detail to the paws. We only have stubs right now and we can add little toes to them! It all depends on how simple you want your style to be. You can decide to leave them as squared shapes to appeal more to the cuteness of a Corgi or give it more detail. Just have fun!

Don’t rush it, loosen up and enjoy the process. Remember this is only your sketch, so it doesn’t need to look perfect right now. That’s for our next step!

8- Draw the final lines!

We started with shapes, then a final sketch to lay everything we need down. Now, all we have to do is clean up our lines. On top of your sketch, draw your final lineart. Take all the time you need and relax.

This is the best advice I can give you when drawing smooth lines. Relax and let yourself have fun. If you’re too tense, your lines will show that tension as well. Draw long smooth lines when you feel they’re needed and short lines for the fur.

You’ve done all of this already in your sketch, now it’s all a matter of repeating the process!

9- Give it some Color

We are mostly done with our drawing, now all we are missing is color. This doesn’t need to be too complicated either!

So start with the Base colors, choose a color that you’d like your Corgi main Body to be and start Painting! The most common colors for a corgi are a cream tone or black.

Then paint the Details: the Collar, the Eye, the little Medal, keeping everything pretty simple. They also have very characteristic patterns, so remember to add those!

And you’re done! You can now draw an adorable Corgi with very simple and easy shapes. Just go step-by-step, without worries and have fun while doing so, I’m sure you’ll end with a very good drawing!

It’s all a matter of practice as well. You can just practice the shapes at first and once you feel you’re good at those, go for the sketches. Practice makes it perfect and you can only improve by repeating and continuing drawing. So have fun with your Corgis!

Try Different Shapes!

Now, I gave you a step-by-step guide, but this doesn’t mean you need to follow these steps strictly. Be inventive with your shapes!

Try different shapes or even play with the proportions. You can exaggerate even more how long the body is. Or draw the head with very big ears. There are lots of options for you to explore and I highly recommend you to experiment with them.

This is how we improve as artists and find our own art style, by experimenting, by looking at how other artists express their art. We’re always learning and always improving.

You can look for more photo references or even look for other artists that draw dogs and corgis. This is always a good way to find inspiration of your own and maybe even understand and learn something new.

We constantly learn with the world around us and other people. As always, all these are just a stepping stone for your own style and drawings. The goal is not to either copy exactly what we see (unless you’re really aiming for realistic art) nor to copy other people.

The goal is to learn with others, so we can improve and do our own thing. And, as always, while having fun with our drawings!

Take your time by trying our different shapes for your Corgi drawings. I’m sure you can get hilarious looking Corgis or even cuter! This is what makes drawing fun: experimenting, even if it looks or sounds silly.

Do a Turn-Around and Experiment With Dog Poses

The drawing we made has a very standard pose, but you’ll probably be interested in drawing your Corgi with different and maybe even more exciting poses. Again, this is a good time to find more reference photos and practice from them.

Look for specific poses that you want to draw and start with basic shapes as we’ve done before.

You can also start with a simple turn-around of a Corgi. This way you have all the main shapes and be prepared to draw any other pose.

This is what we do in my Drawing Dogs course! I highly recommend for you to take a look at it if you’re interested in drawing not only Corgis but other breeds as well. We draw our dogs in different poses and different views.

With these bases, you can go and start drawing your dogs in any pose you want. It’s always good to have a turn-around sheet of any subject you’re drawing, especially animals or people.

So you can always go back too if you need to check proportions, where each part of the body is located, etc.

Drawing Dog Expressions

If you’re going with the cartoony style, play with expressions. Even dogs in real life will show different expressions! Happy, sad, nervous or scared. Anything you want.

It’s also a good idea to make an expression sheet if you wish too. Practice your expressions and when you’re happy with them, add them to the sheet. This way, you have something to go back to if you can’t remember or something’s missing in your drawing.

When drawing the expressions, it is the same logic as with when drawing people’s emotions. Happy and positive emotions are very open and that will show in the drawings. Big eyes, eyebrows going upwards and a big smiley mouth.

These can be more or less exaggerated depending on how happy the character is.

As for sadder or angry expressions, it’s the opposite. Everything comes close with each other. The eyebrows get very close with the eyes and latter can come close to the nose and mouth as well.

Again it’s good to find references of dogs, in different activities and showing different attitudes and demeanors. Having a good understanding of both a dogs expression and people will help you immensely in drawing a cartoon dog.

Watch some of your favorite cartoons series or movies. Disney is very well known for their character design and can be a good way to study expressions on animals. It is also a good excuse to spend an evening or two watching some of your favorite movies!

Have Fun Drawing Different Dog Breeds!

And that’s it! You now know how to draw a Corgi. Whenever you’re ready and perfected your Corgi, it’s time to go to other breeds and practice them.

The logic is the same as with Corgis. Get some reference material, study it and find its basic shapes. Once you’ve figured out the shapes, you just need to sketch your dog on top of it and then finalize it!

Every subject becomes easier to draw once we break it down to simple shapes. It is much less scary to draw simple shapes than all the details at once. Just relax and have some fun with dogs!

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