Step 1)
A very simple start. You draw one large circle to make the bee's body, and another smaller circle to make the bee's head.
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Step 2)
With two sets of wings added. If you want an even simpler bee, you could add just one set of wings, but I like the look of two sets of wings. Think of leaf shapes or tear drop shapes as you draw these.
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Step 3)
Add two stripes or bands of black along the bee's body. Try making these by moving your pencil back and forth in short back and forth strokes as you slowly drag your hand down across the page.
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Step 4)
This bee is now basically finished. It just needs to be colored in. All I did from this step to the last was fill in the bee's head so its all black, and I added two little antennae by making a line and then putting a dot on the end.
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Another view of the bee
Shake it up a little! This is the same simplified bee, but drawn from a side view. This is a good angle to use if you want to show the bee about to land on a flower.
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Step 5)
This is the bee colored in. I used a yellow marker for highlights and a light brown marker.
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Step 1)
Real bees have three segments to their bodies. This little circle is the middle segment.
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Step 2)
Next you add the abdomen segment. This can be a horizontal oval, or you can make it so it tapers a bit at the end. Just remember - bees don't have the big scary stingers that wasps have.
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Step 3)
This modified triangle shape is the bee's head.
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Step 4)
Bees are shaggy. Its one of the best ways to tell the difference between a bee and a wasp, so we'll make our bee a little bit shaggy so that people understand this is a bee, not a wasp.
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Step 5)
Next I drew a black line along the outside of the three shapes to pull them all together. I also added antennae and three stripes along the bee's belly.
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Step 6)
I've shaded in the bee's head, and added legs. The legs are interesting, because they end in little bee feet that are kind of like hooks that go off at an angle from the larger leg segments.
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Step 7)
Here I've added a few more lines of detail to the legs to make the different parts of the legs stand out more, and I've added some strokes in black to the bee's shaggy midsection. I've also started filling in the body with a brown marker.
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Step 8)
More coloring in with the marker. If you can, use a yellow marker, a light brown and a dark brown marker. This will let you do highlights and shadows nicely.
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Step 9)
With the wings added. The wings are shaped like long triangles. I like the way the legs came out in this particular drawing.
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Another bee to study
Notice how the bands of black along the bee's abdomen are bent a little in this drawing. This makes the bee's abdomen look rounder, and thus gives your drawing a bit more depth.
I did the wings in brown only on the outside edges, mostly to make them stand out more, and left the yellow lines to show the details of the different wing segments.
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And another bee to study
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