How to Draw a Snake
Today I have decided to teach you how to draw a snake, known for being a silent and fearsome reptile. Capable of sneaking just about anywhere thanks to their body which is uniquely flexible. Before starting to draw a snake, we will look at its anatomy to understand what is happening and how it works.
OBSERVATION OF SNAKE ANATOMY
First, we will look at how the snake moves and feeds... In fact, there are many types of snakes in the world. Some are venomous, others kill by suffocating their prey... Their mode of movement is in a zigzag because the snake does not have limbs (it has no front or hind legs).
As previously mentioned, the snake is a carnivorous reptile with a cylindrical and elongated body, devoid of visible limbs. It is an amniote vertebrate characterized by skin covered with overlapping scales and protected by a thick horny layer. Snakes have specific characteristics including a bifurcated tongue, eyelid-less eyes, an articulated skull and mobile jaws that facilitate the ingestion of prey. They share the absence of legs with two other groups of tetrapod vertebrates.
Here are some different types of snakes that can be found around the world:
Let's now talk a little about the skeleton of these sinuous beasts.
The shoulder girdle is always absent from a snake's skeleton.
The spine is made up of a large number of vertebrae (160 to 400) that are very well articulated with each other; the undulations of the body are thus possible thanks to this structure on one hand and on the other hand due to the existence of lateral muscles whose apophyseal insertions are situated far apart from each other (up to 30 vertebrae apart).
Here is an example to illustrate this paragraph:
No wonder looking at this picture that the snake is at the root of many mythological and fantastical creatures created by man!
The mouth can stretch to accommodate the prey they capture. This large oral opening is made possible because firstly, the quadratum is an elongated rod that articulates quite far back from the neurocranium; and secondly, the rotation of the quadratum around its joint moves the mandible (a very flexible lower jaw that can practically move in all directions) far away from the upper jaw (loosely connected to the skull bones).
Furthermore, a powerful muscle stretched between the temporal region and the posterior end of the mandible helps to lower the latter even more ventrally.
As a result, snakes are capable of swallowing huge prey: a leopard that had first been suffocated was found in the stomach of a five-meter python. Moreover, the salivary glands secrete enough saliva to facilitate the ingestion of prey by lubricating them. The stomach produces an extremely acidic juice even capable of dissolving teeth.
Note that below 10°C, the digestive process cannot function efficiently and the snake must regurgitate its prey; the ideal temperature for digestion is 30°C. That is why the snake seeks to reach this temperature, for instance by basking in the sun when it has just fed.
Here are some more images illustrating a snake's jaw:
Let's now talk about their scales, which make up a large part of their body.
The bodies of snakes are covered with scales. Like other squamates and unlike fish, for example, these are thickened areas of the epidermis and not individualized scales.
Scales can have all sorts of sizes, shapes, textures and arrangements, including within the same species. The shape, number, and arrangement of scales help to differentiate between different snake species.
In particular, the different scales on the head are generally characteristic of a species, as well as the number of rows of dorsal scales (in terms of width) and the number of ventral scales (in terms of length). We will take this type of snake as an example to illustrate our point:
Scales have several functions. Firstly, they provide mechanical protection against skin wear. This protection is particularly important, as epidermal wear is very rapid in these animals that move by crawling. Scales also undoubtedly help to limit dehydration, even though this capability is poorly understood and perhaps overestimated.
They can also facilitate movement, with smooth scales reducing friction in vegetation and sand, while rougher scales allow for easier gripping.
Snub-nosed snakes, for example, have an upturned rostral scale that allows them to dig. Additionally, they may have a camouflage function, with prominent scales helping to break up the contour lines of the animal's head in the eyes of potential prey or predators.
Some snakes, particularly the grass snake, polish their dorsal and ventral scales with a viscous liquid secreted near the nostrils. This polishing likely serves to limit transcutaneous evaporation by covering the scales with lipids, but could also be a means of chemical communication.
DRAWING THE SNAKE
Now that we know a bit more about our snake friends, we can start drawing them. Let's look at how to draw a snake, and we will use this photo as a reference.
As mentioned above, since the snake does not possess an internal skeleton, we will start with a simple line, which enables us to understand the curves it can make. We can then build out the body.
DRAWING THE SNAKE'S HEAD
Now that this curve has been plotted and we have tidied everything up, we will move on to the head by placing an oval that corresponds to the serpent's head.
Cleaning Up:
Here is the first step:
The head is constructed in the form of a rounded oval. The snake's snout will be drawn as two triangular points.
We then draw a line delineating the top and bottom of the snake's head:
This will now enable us to position the reptile's eye, which is quite close to its snout.
To create the "eyebrow arches," we will represent them as triangles that we place between the snake's eyes.
DRAWING THE SNAKE BODY
Now that the base of the head is drawn, we will move on to the body of these sinuous animals. It will be represented with shapes of deformed cylinders.
Place two lines slightly diagonally from the snake. They will represent the tree which our snake is clinging onto.
THE DETAILS OF THE DRAWING
Let's move on to the details that can be observed on the animal that we have taken as a reference. We will go back to the head we built at the beginning. We add a square to more precisely define its snout.
HEAD DETAILS
Between the triangle and the square that we just added, put a diamond which will be its nostril. Then extend the line of the eyebrows to outline its jaw.
Round the shapes so it becomes a real snake head. Like this. The eye is represented by a line.
BODY DETAILS
Knowing that the snake has a very flexible body, we will construct some sinuous curves over our base drawings. Here is the result for the body.
There remains a detail that we will see right away which is the scales of a snake.
DRAWING THE SCALES OF THE SNAKE
According to our reference photo, our snake has scales that follow the curves of its body. But how can we draw them when there are so many? Here's a drawing illustrating how to easily draw them. To do this, make intersecting lines (create a grid) as shown in 1 on the drawing. Then in 2, round out this grid and add the scales in the shape of a rounded triangle (shown in red).
This will result in the following snake drawing:
All you need to do is switch to "off" mode and be patient while adding the two layers over the entire body of the snake as shown below:
Yes, it can take some time, but take it easy, you're not in any rush anyway. And be aware, doing the snake skin well is the most important thing that will make our snake drawing excellent!
To conclude this article, we have learned how to simply construct a snake using cylinders, triangles, squares and other simple shapes. Once again, observation is a crucial point in order to understand and reproduce what you see.
Grab your pencils and see you soon for a new tutorial :)
Illustrator and writer: Laure-Hélène