Turn Your Photo into aPet Drawing

A pet drawing made from your photo, not a drawing lesson

Many searches for drawings of pets are from people learning to draw. This page is something else. You upload a photo, and our tool produces the finished pet drawing for you. You do not need a pencil, a tablet or any skill. The output is a minimal line art portrait: head and upper chest, centered, drawn with clean black lines of even weight on a plain white background, with no shading and no color.

That restraint is the point. A simple drawing of pets is easy to reuse in places where a full painting would not work: a tattoo idea, an embroidery pattern, a laser-engraved keepsake, a stamp or a handmade card. If you want color and texture, the painted styles are a click away, such as watercolor pet portraits.

Pet line art, pet sketch and cartoon: which drawing to pick

We have two drawn styles, and they suit different jobs:

• Line Art: black ink outlines on white, minimal and elegant. Pick it for anything you want to trace, stitch, engrave or print in one color.
• Cartoon: a cute character with a soft 3D look, big eyes and a pastel background. This is the cartoon pet drawing people use for stickers, avatars and kids' rooms.
• Pencil sketch or charcoal look: we do not have a separate shaded pencil style yet. Line Art is the closest, and printing it on textured drawing paper gives it a hand-sketched feel. If you need a shaded graphite portrait, a sketch artist is the better choice.
• For bright and loud, try Pop Art, covered on the funny pet portraits page.

Pet drawing ideas: tattoos, embroidery, engraving and cards

Because the file is clean black lines on white, it travels well to other crafts. A few ways owners use their pet drawings:

• Tattoo ideas. Bring the drawing to your tattoo artist as a reference. They will redraw it to suit your skin, size and their own line style, but the drawing shows them your pet's exact face and markings in seconds.
• Embroidery. Print the drawing at the size of your hoop, trace it onto fabric with a water-soluble pen, and stitch along the lines. Even lines make a clean backstitch pattern.
• Engraving and laser cutting. Wood, leather, slate and metal engravers work from high-contrast line images. The white background means there is nothing to clean up first.
• Cards and stationery. Print it on a folded card, add a hand-written note, and you have a birthday card or a new-pet announcement.
• Mugs, totes and stickers. One-color line art prints cheaply and looks sharp on fabric and ceramics at most print-on-demand services.

Choosing a photo for custom pet drawings

Line art follows edges, so contrast matters more than color. A dark dog against a light wall, or a white cat on a dark sofa, gives the clearest outline. Keep the whole head in frame, ears included, because the drawing will close every outline it starts. Front-facing or three-quarter photos work best. A head tilt is charming here: our French bulldog example in the gallery is drawn mid-tilt.

Very fluffy pets come out as a simplified outline with a few fur strokes, which is how most illustrators draw them anyway. If you want every hair, try the pet portrait painting style instead. For breed-specific photo tips, see dog portraits and cat portraits.

Cost and file size

Your first pet drawing is free to preview and free to download in HD after a free sign-up. After that a drawing costs 40 credits, the same as any style, which is under $1 in every pack. The file is a 2048 × 2048 JPEG, sharp in print up to about 8 × 8 inches. For large engraving or vinyl work, ask your maker to trace it into vector format. All packs are on pricing.