How To Draw Flames

With any drawings that I do I like to keep things as simple as possible, at least initially - any drawings or cartoons should be started with simple easily repeatable shapes and forms, detail being added later. No matter if I am creating a small cartoon character or a 20" x 30" portrait, I always start with simple shapes drawn lightly in pencil.

Firstly we should find a subject to draw, in this case I found a stock photo of flames for reference. In the photo and clipart below we can see the basic shape of flames is similar to a teardrop shape. This is obvious when we see a gas flame when cooking etc. The flames are round and wider at the bottom and taper to nothing at the top.

 


Flames can be drawn simply using two S shapes which meet at the top and the bottom but widen apart in the middle. With larger fires there are many individual flames as you can see in the first photo above. How can we draw this simply? Just by creating a single outer "flame" and filling it with smaller flame shapes:

 

To create even more complex shapes, for example for use on car art to suggest flames shooting along the side of the car, the same principles apply. The flames are simply turned sideways, and more individual flames are used as shown below:

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