How to draw a cute frog with a tilted smile

To draw this cute frog, build the tilted head first, leave an opening for the body, then add the short front arms and folded hind legs. Finish with the eye rims, pupils and broad smile. The front hands sit close together; the larger back feet point outward on either side.

A pencil, plain paper and an eraser are enough. Use a fineliner only after you are happy with the joins. This is a complete seated frog, with more curves than the small face-only frog in our drawing collection. Give it room on the page rather than squeezing the hands into a tiny corner.

Leave room for the eyes and back feet

Look at the finished outline before you start. The right eye bump sits higher than the left because the head tilts. The eye rims follow that tilt; the hands and feet still settle toward one ground line.

Lightly mark the top of the higher eye bump and the bottom of the fingers. Leave space outside the body for both folded thighs and the broad back feet. The head is wider than the torso. A body as wide as the head will leave little room for those side legs.

The pale dashed head oval is only a placement guide. Keep the finished head open underneath where it meets the body. Erase the oval at step 7. The second oval and baseline help place the limbs; erase them at step 32, after the back feet are connected.

The three rounded tips on each front hand are drawing simplifications. Follow their contours one at a time instead of trying to draw a complete hand in one fast loop. The Detailed guide separates these turns and shows a larger view beside the whole frog.

Draw it step by step

Choose how much guidance you want. Both guides use the same frog and finish with the same outline.

Detailed guide

Draw only the dark plum additions in each panel. Solid gray lines show earlier work. Dashed lines are light placement guides: erase the head oval at step 7, then the body oval and ground line at step 32. The larger view shows the same lines as the whole drawing beside it.

PDFs open in a new tab. The Detailed pack has 12 pages, including a blank outline and an optional color reference.

Quick guide

These checkpoints combine several actions. Use the Detailed guide whenever a finger, toe or join needs more explanation.

Show the 10-stage Quick guide and its PDFs

Quick guide — A4 PDFQuick guide — US Letter PDF

PDFs open in a new tab. The Quick pack has 5 pages, including the same blank outline and color reference.

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Quick stage 1: Draw the broad cheeks, two raised eye bumps and curved forehead. Leave the neck opening below the head.

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Quick stage 2: Lightly mark the body oval and ground line, then draw its two outer edges.

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Quick stage 3: Draw the outer arm edge, three rounded fingers and inner arm edge.

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Quick stage 4: Repeat the short arm on the other side, keeping the hands apart.

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Quick stage 5: Draw the arch between the arms and close it with a shallow bottom curve.

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Quick stage 6: Round the left thigh, add the inward fold and finish its three broad back toes.

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Quick stage 7: Repeat the thigh, fold and back toes on the right. Erase the body and ground guides.

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Quick stage 8: Place a complete round rim in each raised eye bump, following the head's tilt.

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Quick stage 9: Darken the pupils around their white highlights and add two tiny nostrils.

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Quick stage 10: Draw the broad smile and its short rounded corner marks.

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Check the hands, feet and eye tilt

The frog seems to have too many legs. Find the two short front arms first: they end in the two hands at the center. Then trace each wide side thigh into its outward back foot. The small lines inside the thighs are folds, not extra limbs. Avoid drawing a second body edge across a hand or foot.

A foot looks detached. Follow the outside of its thigh down to the upper toe, then return along the lower toe toward the ankle. Compare steps 23–27 for the left side or 28–32 for the right. Leave the toe notches open as inward curves; they are not gaps cut through the outline.

The fingers turn into sharp spikes. Slow down at each tip and make a round bend. Draw this area larger on a practice sheet if necessary. Keep a little white space between the front hands.

The eye rims look like ears. Place each complete eye rim inside its raised bump, with enough white space around the pupil. The rim belongs to the eye; the outer bump remains part of the head. Do not put small pupils below the bumps in the middle of the face.

The smile makes the head look lopsided. Compare it with the head’s tilt rather than trying to make it level with the page. Keep the curve inside the cheek edges and leave space below the nostrils. The short corner marks come last.

Check the larger relationships before darkening details: a broad head, a narrower torso, two separate front hands and two connected back feet. An uneven pupil is easier to adjust than a crowded hand.

Try a small change

Keep the same pose for your first attempt. On a second drawing, change just the mouth: try a shorter curve, a tiny closed smile or a flatter expression. Retain the head tilt and limb joins while you compare the result.

For a palette study, use the blank outline. Try a blue-green body with a cream belly, or color only the belly patch and leave the rest white. The eye highlights can remain the paper color. Coloring is optional and is separate from the drawing-step count.

You can place a smaller finished frog beside a handwritten note or draw a row of expressions in a sketchbook. Start larger while learning the fingers, then reduce the drawing once those turns feel familiar.

Print and practise

Choose the PDF size that matches your paper. The Detailed guide has 12 pages: ten teaching pages with whole and closer views, a blank outline, then the optional colored reference. The Quick guide has 5 pages: three teaching pages, followed by the same outline and color reference. The guide sections above have separate A4 and US Letter links. PDFs open in a new tab.

Print only the pages you need. Fit-to-page is suitable for these drawing worksheets; there is no measured craft pattern to keep at an exact scale. The SVG outline stays sharp when resized, and the PNG is useful for a screen reference.

Try a first frog while following the Detailed panels. For another attempt, use the Quick checkpoints and return to a closer view when a join is unclear. Compare the head-to-body width, the separation between the front hands and the two hind-foot connections before adding the face.

For another seated animal, try the koala lesson. The cute cat guide introduces a different front-paw pose. Browse more subjects in cute things to draw, or choose a blank design from cute coloring pages.

One color idea

This frog uses a soft green body and a pale yellow belly. Keep the eye interiors and small pupil highlights white, or choose another palette. The outline and pose are exactly the same as the drawing guides.