How to Draw a Cartoon Car

Sketching a Rounded Cartoon Car

Draw a narrow rectangle lightly in pencil for the car body. Use a light touch so you can easily erase lines and round off corners later as needed. This starting rectangle represents the basic outline of the body of your car, so make it as long and wide as you’d like the body of the finished car to be. Even if you want to use pens, markers, or paints to create your car, start by sketching lightly in pencil. It’s a lot easier to make changes or fix mistakes this way! Start your drawing this way in order to create a side view (2-dimensional view) of a cartoon car.

Stack a half circle on top of the rectangle to represent the roof and windshields. The diameter (width) of the half circle should be about two-thirds to three-fourths of the length of the rectangle. Either center the half circle on top of the rectangle, or slide it slightly back so that the front hood of the car is a bit longer than the trunk. Since this is a cartoon car, precision isn’t essential here. If you want a more precise half circle, though, use a drawing compass or protractor, the bottom of a glass, or another method for drawing circles.

Draw 2 circles along the bottom of the rectangle for the car’s wheels. The horizontal line at the bottom of the rectangle should run right through the middle of both circles. Center each circle roughly underneath the point where the half circle of the car’s canopy meets the rectangle for the car’s body. You can make the wheels as big or small as you like, depending on how realistic you want your cartoon car to be. Generally, the diameter of each wheel should be about one-sixth of the length of the rectangle that represents the car’s body.

Round off the corners of the car’s body and erase excess sketching lines. Use your eraser to get rid of the lines running through the middle of each wheel. Then, use your pencil to round off the corners of the rectangle. You can round off the corners equally, or give the front hood of the car more of a curve than the back. Once you’ve created the rounded corners to your liking, erase the sharp corners of the initial rectangle.

Sketch in the bumpers in front of and behind the wheels. Make each bumper look like a square or rectangle with rounded corners. Place the front bumper in front of the front wheel, at the rounded corner of the rectangle. Put the rear bumper behind the back wheel in the same way. Use your eraser as needed to remove any lines inside the bumpers.

Add a circular front headlight and a square tail light. Place the circle for the front headlight just above the front bumper. Similarly, add a square with rounded edges right above the rear bumper to represent the tail light.

Make a face out of the front headlight and bumper if you want. Instead of a normal-sized headlight, make the front light extra big if you want to give your cartoon car a face! Draw a smaller circle inside it for the eyeball, a horizontal line inside it for the eyelid, and a horizontal line above it for the eyebrow. You can also easily turn the front bumper into a mouth. Instead of a rectangle with rounded corners, give the bumper an upward curve so it looks like a side view of a smile. You can then sketch in some lips and teeth if you like!

Sketch a window in the car’s canopy by making a slightly smaller half circle. This second half circle should be just inside of and barely smaller than the half circle that makes up the car’s canopy. The small gap between the half circles represents the window frame and roof of the car. If you want to create 2 side windows instead of just a single window, draw 2 closely-spaced vertical lines that split the inner half circle into 2 pieces. These lines represent the door frame between the windows.

Add more details to the car based on your preferences. You can stop right here and have a very basic but recognizable cartoon car. You might, however, may want to add more details such as the following: Circles inside the wheels for hubcaps. Half circles just above the wheels to represent the wheel wells. 2 doors that are primarily rectangular in shape, with small rounded rectangles for door handles. A mix of rounded rectangles and circles to represent the steering wheel and seats visible through the window.

Clean up your drawing and color it, if desired. Go back over your sketch and erase any remaining pencil lines that should no longer be there. Then, use a pen or marker to darken the outline and interior lines of the car. At this point, you can leave the picture as-is or start to color in the components of the car with crayons, markers, or paints. The finishing details are up to you—make the completed cartoon car look any way you like!

Doodling a Boxy Cartoon Car

Draw a rectangle for the car’s body with a pencil. Press lightly so that you can erase parts of the rectangle easily later on. The rectangle should be about 4 times as wide as it is high. If you want the car to be a little less boxy, make the top horizontal line a little shorter than the bottom horizontal line, and angle the vertical lines slightly inward. In other words, draw a trapezoid instead of a rectangle! This easy sketch makes a side view (2-dimensional view) of a boxy-looking car.

Draw the car's canopy directly on top of the body rectangle. Make the canopy a trapezoid (that is, a rectangle with angled sides and a top line that's shorter than the bottom line). Draw it about half the width of the rectangle for the body, but make it about the same height. The angled lines on the trapezoid represent the front and rear windshields. You can make the sides angle inward equally, or give the side that represents the front windshield a slightly sharper angle.

Pencil in circles and half circles for the wheels, hubcaps, and wheel wells. Start by drawing 2 circles to represent the wheels. Situate the circles so that the bottom line of the car body rectangle cuts them in half horizontally. Space them out so that they’re beneath the front and rear windshields—that is, the angled vertical lines of the trapezoid. Each circle should be roughly one-sixth the width of the car body rectangle. Then, draw half circles over the top halves of both wheel circles—these represent the wheel wells. After that, draw slightly smaller circles inside both wheel circles to represent the hubcaps.

Add the headlights and bumper at the front of the car. For the front bumper, draw a square with rounded sides that overlaps the bottom left (or right) corner of the car body rectangle. Give the headlight an oval or conical shape if you want, a bit like an ice cream cone turned sideways! Locate the headlight just below the top left (or right) corner of the car body rectangle. You can also add a rear bumper to the opposite side of the car if you wish. To give your cartoon car a face, make the front headlight much bigger and add an circle for an eyeball and a line for an eyelid inside it. Also, make the front bumper bigger and give it an upward turn to look like a smile!

Create 2 side windows within the outline of the car's canopy. Draw a slightly smaller trapezoid inside the existing one, leaving only a small amount of spacing all around to represent the window frames. Then, draw 2 closely-spaced vertical lines in the middle of this smaller trapezoid to represent the frame that separates the 2 side windows.

Draw a small mirror at the lower corner of the window nearest the car’s front. Create a small trapezoid with rounded edges, and tilt the top forward slightly if desired. You can skip this step if you wish, but it’s an easy way to add a bit more detail to your cartoon car.

Sketch in the rectangular car doors and door handles. Make the front door roughly equal in size and directly below the front window, and do the same with the rear door. The doors should primarily be rectangles, with rounded in-cuts at one corner to make room for the wheel wells you’ve already drawn. For the door handles, draw a small rectangle with rounded edges just inside the top rear corner of each door.

Add a tailpipe and exhaust fumes, if desired. Give the tailpipe a rectangular shape and place it just beneath the rear bottom corner of the car body rectangle. If you want your car to appear to be in motion, draw some wispy lines or a rounded cloud shape coming out of the tailpipe.

Darken over your pencil lines to finalize your sketch. Use a pen or marker to go over the pencil lines representing the wheels, hubcaps, wheel wells, doors, windows, and so on. Follow up by tracing over the pencil outline of the car with a pen or marker. Don’t trace over pencil lines that you don’t want to be visible—such as the horizontal lines that run through the center of the wheels. Erase the excess pencil lines that you don’t trace over—for instance, the shared horizontal line that marks the top of the body rectangle and the bottom of the windshield trapezoid. Once you’ve darkened the outline and details of the car, you can color it if you wish.