Most people fail when they sit down to learn how to draw a monkey because they start with the ears. It’s a classic mistake. You see a monkey in your head—big ears, long tail, maybe a banana—and you try to outline that shape immediately.
Stop.
If you start with the outline, you’re basically doomed to create a flat, cartoonish blob that lacks any sense of weight or life. Drawing animals, specifically primates, is actually about understanding the relationship between the ribcage and the pelvis. Monkeys are incredibly flexible, but they have a rigid skeletal structure just like us. If you don't get the "bean" shape of the torso right, the rest of the drawing will feel stiff and unnatural.
Honestly, it’s all about the gesture.
Why the "Circle Method" is Ruining Your Progress
We’ve all seen those tutorials. They tell you to draw a circle for the head and a bigger circle for the body. While that’s fine for a toddler, it doesn't help you understand the anatomy of a Macaque or a Chimpanzee.
Monkeys have a very specific posture. They are rarely standing perfectly upright or sitting completely flat. Most species, especially those in the Cercopithecidae family, have a pronounced curve in their spine when they sit. Instead of circles, think in terms of volume.
Think of the head as a rounded cube. The muzzle—the part where the mouth and nose are—protrudes significantly. If you draw the face flat on a circle, it looks like a human wearing a mask. You have to pull that muzzle out toward the viewer.
The Secret is in the Brow Ridge
When you're focusing on how to draw a monkey face, the eyes aren't the most important part. It's the brow.
Primates have a very heavy, bony ridge above their eyes called a supraorbital torus. This is what gives them that intense, thoughtful, or even grumpy look. If you skip this, your monkey will look like a wide-eyed anime character.
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- Sketch a light horizontal line across the middle of your head-shape.
- Build a "shelf" over that line.
- Tuck the eyes underneath that shelf so they are partially in shadow.
This creates depth. It makes the eyes look recessed and realistic. You’ve probably noticed that many professional concept artists at places like Disney or Pixar over-emphasize this ridge to give their characters more expression. It works.
Proportions: The Long Arm of the Law
One of the weirdest things about monkey anatomy is the limb length. Depending on the species, their arms can be significantly longer than their legs. If you’re drawing a spider monkey, those limbs are spindly and almost whip-like.
A common pitfall is making the hands and feet too small.
Monkeys have "hands" for feet. Their big toe is opposable, meaning it sticks out to the side like a thumb. This is vital for gripping branches. When you draw the feet, don't draw human feet. Draw a hand with shorter fingers and a very chunky thumb-toe.
The tail isn't just a decorative noodle, either. For many New World monkeys, the tail is a fifth limb. It has a "friction pad" on the underside—a patch of hairless, sensitive skin that helps them grip. If you’re drawing a prehensile tail, it should look like it’s actively squeezing the branch, not just draped over it like a piece of rope.
Dealing with Fur Without Going Insane
Don't draw every hair. Please.
If you try to draw every single hair on a monkey’s body, you will lose your mind and the drawing will look like a messy ball of wire. Instead, think about clumps.
Fur follows the form of the muscle underneath. On the shoulders, the fur is usually thicker and hangs down. Around the face, it’s shorter and radiates outward from the nose. You only need to define the "silhouette" of the fur. Use jagged, uneven lines on the edges of your shapes to suggest texture, and then use some light hatching in the shadow areas. That's it. Your brain will fill in the rest of the texture.
The Difference Between an Ape and a Monkey
I see this all the time on social media: someone posts a beautiful drawing of a chimpanzee and captions it "Look at my monkey drawing!"
Biologically, they are different. If it has a tail, it’s usually a monkey. If it doesn't, it’s an ape (like a Chimp, Gorilla, or Orangutan). From a drawing perspective, apes are much more "top-heavy." They have massive ribcages and shoulders. Monkeys are generally more "tube-like" and slender.
When you are learning how to draw a monkey, keep the torso lean. Think of them as athletic, lithe creatures. They are built for leaping and sprinting, not for the raw power of a Silverback.
Light and Shadow: The "Muzzle Break"
Because a monkey’s face has so many planes—the protruding muzzle, the deep eye sockets, the flared nostrils—it catches light in a very specific way.
Usually, the top of the muzzle (the bridge of the nose) will be a highlight. The area directly under the nose and above the upper lip will be in shadow. This "muzzle break" is what gives the face its three-dimensional quality. If you’re using pencil, use a 2B or 4B to really push those darks under the brow ridge and the chin.
Contrast is your friend here.
Actionable Next Steps for Your Sketchbook
Don't just read this and close the tab. You actually have to move the pencil.
- Step 1: The Bean. Draw five different "beans" in your sketchbook. Curve them, twist them, stretch them. These are your torsos.
- Step 2: The Muzzle. Practice drawing spheres with a smaller "muzzle block" sticking out of the front at different angles. Up, down, side-to-side.
- Step 3: The Hands. Draw a human hand, then draw a monkey "foot-hand" next to it. Notice how the "thumb" on the foot is positioned much lower toward the heel.
- Step 4: Silhouette Check. Take a black marker and fill in your entire drawing. If you can still tell it’s a monkey just by the outline, you’ve nailed the proportions. If it looks like a generic quadruped, you need to exaggerate the limb length and the head shape more.
Go grab a 2B pencil. Start with the spine, not the ears. The weight of the animal should feel like it's pulling toward the ground or gripping a branch with intent.
Drawing is just seeing. Once you see the "shelf" of the brow and the "bean" of the body, the monkey is already there. You’re just tracing the reality.