Ogres have been around for a very long time. Everyone seems to be familiar with what an ogre is. Though, if you ask someone to describe an ogre, you rarely get a complete description of their characteristics.
Maybe no two ogres look much alike. Though, they must have some similar traits to be recognized. Surely a few of them are related to each other.
Maybe anyone who’s actually seen one spent more of their energy running away than observing the finer details of the startling creature they happened upon.
At the moment I’m sketching scenes for an illustrated story about an ogre. While thinking about his features, I read through a variety of stories that involved these mythical brutes. I also viewed so many pictures that my mental image of an ogre became less clear than originally imagined.
So, what I’ve discovered is that an ogre is a large beast of a humanoid form. An illustrated ogre may have any amount of deformity you might imagine.
It’s okay if your ogre has unique physical features. Ogres are often involved in some type of enchanted story. So, they may have unrealistic growths & magic transformations cast upon them.
If your ogre’s physical features don’t look like you had imagined, simply make up a story to explain the extraordinary physique of your creature.
…… Imagination
I always imagine them so big & dirty. Most of them are lustful gluttonous violent beasts! Then there’s that one cute Ogre that looks like a chubby alien with his talking animal Friends, but we only believe he’s an ogre because we’re told he is. . . . A story book ogre should at least look a little scary. Right?
So, how do you draw an ogre for an illustrated children’s book?
Action
Well, here’s an how: You doodle the heck out of the idea & call the thing an ogre. . .
This one kinda looks like an ape. I’ve sketched at lest one portion of an ogre per day for more than a week now. Some days I’ve sketched several ogres of various moods. Considering the final design will be for a children’s book, I don’t want it to look too realistic or terribly scary. I hope the final style is simple enough to encourage the reader to think they can also draw a similar ogre.
Drawing an ogre is actually a fun way to practice drawing people. If your proportions are off, just remember that ogres are disproportionate humanish looking creatures that are fun to draw however they turn out!
SO, I redrew this guy & gave him some color.