Drawing worms

2026-09-02
J.M. Janzen

Hey there, here's how I draw worms sometimes.

Step 1. I draw some faint scribbles

progress sketch 1: light pencil swirls on lined paper. The word 'tomorrow' is legible, but no other notable notes are decipherable

Just a random swirl of lines to get started.

Step 2. Sketch worm outlines

progress sketch 2: some of the pencil swirls have been resolved into 3 or more worms in a tangle. 3 cartoon faces can be seen, and the worms' bodies have been lightly penciled-in

A lot of fun. Just like trace around and find all the worms' heads and tails, and how they're going to fit together.

Step 3. Start on worm detail

progress sketch 3: the same sketch but now the worms have lines on their bodies, and one tail curl has been fixed to be shorter and more realistic

This is where you commit to worms. (Can you commit to your worms?) And last best chance to correct anything that doesn't look like it will work.

Step 4. Shading pass

progress sketch 4: the sketch now has pillowy shading with a couple of dark areas where the worms' bodies are underneath each other

Light always comes from the top-right. It's the law.

But yeah, look at earlier commitment and keep committing. Think about the dimensionality of your worms—who's in the foreground/bg, and where the shadows fall / where they look good.

That said, if you're doing worm faces (oh you must do worm faces!) then you probably want to keep them pretty clear. But that's art, babies—use a touch of realism to communicate what the object is, but then flaunt that realism as soon it would make something look less like what you want it to.

Step 5. Detail pass

progress sketch 5: more detailed version of the sketch with much darker, bolder lines. The worms look unmistakably like cartoon worms now

Add that weird segment that worms have (apparently this is a clitellum; mad respect).

Continue to firm up those lines. The ones in shadow are generally going to be darker, and the opposite ones lighter (looking at my own sketch I didn't really follow this—I went kind of all–around toon lines, but that's a look too).

Step 6. Zhuzh pass

progress sketch 6: the final sketch with lots of wiggle lines, some exertion lines where the worms' bodies are holding up the tangle of worms. One worm with an intense expression yells: who's steppin' on my foot! Another worm in behind the others has a question mark above it's head and innocent expression. The third visible worm's face is set in a somewhat sly smile hehehe like they're a little sneak who steps on other worms' feet

I like the add the flavour here—that means your movement lines, your word bubbles, etc.