If you’ve ever sat in a boring class or waited for a Brawl Stars match to load and found yourself wanting to doodle your favorite brawler, you’ve probably stopped yourself because you assumed you aren’t “good enough at art.” I get it, I used to do the same thing. The bold, quirky designs of characters like El Primo, Spike, and Shelly look like they’d require years of art experience to pull off, but that’s not the case at all. This guide will walk you through how to draw Brawl Stars characters easy, no fancy supplies or professional training required, so you can start doodling your go-to brawlers whenever you have a spare minute.
How to Draw Brawl Stars Characters Easy: Prep First to Skip Common Mistakes
Before you grab a pencil and start scribbling, a tiny bit of prep will save you a ton of frustration later. First, you don’t need any fancy supplies. I’ve drawn perfect brawler doodles with a beat-up #2 pencil, a crumpled eraser, and the back of a homework sheet, so don’t waste money on expensive markers, drawing tablets, or specialty paper unless you already have those things lying around. Next, pick the right first brawler to practice. Don’t jump straight to complex characters with lots of tiny details like Byron, Cordelius, or Belle. Start with brawlers built from simple, round shapes, like El Primo, Spike, or Nita. Their designs have very few small parts, so you won’t get overwhelmed trying to draw 10 different belt buckles or tiny feather details right off the bat. The last prep step is to pull up one clear, official image of the brawler you want to draw. Don’t try to work from memory when you’re first starting out, it’s way too easy to mix up small details like the shape of Colt’s belt or the color of Shelly’s shotgun. Official art from the game’s social pages is all high resolution and easy to reference for free.
Step-by-Step Breakdown for Your First Brawler Doodle
Let’s use El Primo as our first example, since his design is almost entirely made of circles and ovals, so it’s impossible to mess up too badly. Start by drawing a large, slightly lopsided circle for his head – it doesn’t have to be perfectly round, El Primo’s head is a little wonky in official art anyway. Next, draw two smaller, equally lopsided circles on either side of the lower half of the head, those are his signature oversized fists. I used to draw his body first and then struggle to fit his fists in the right place, so drawing the fists first cuts that problem out entirely. Once you have the head and fists down, draw a wide, short oval attached to the bottom of the head for his torso. Brawlers don’t follow real human anatomy rules, so you don’t need to add a neck between the head and torso, that’s part of the cartoonish art style. Next, add the mask line: draw a thick, curved line across the top third of the head, leaving space for two small dot eyes right below the line. Add two small triangles on the top of the head for the points of his mask, then draw two short, thick lines coming out of the bottom of the torso for his legs. Add the striped shorts, draw the lines for his wrist wraps on the fists, and you’re done. The whole process takes less than 10 minutes, even if you’ve never drawn anything more complex than a stick figure before. If you mess up a line, just erase it and try again, no one is grading your doodles.
Pro Tricks to Make Your Brawlers Look Accurate Without Extra Work
Once you’ve nailed the basic El Primo doodle, you can use these simple tricks to make any brawler you draw look instantly recognizable, even if your lines are a little messy. These are the same tricks I used to go from doodling unrecognizable blobs to making fan art that my Brawl Stars club thought I paid someone to make:
- Lean into the exaggerated proportions: Every Brawl Stars character is intentionally drawn with oversized, distinctive features, so you don’t have to follow real human anatomy rules at all. Shelly’s shotgun is almost as big as her entire torso, El Primo’s fists are bigger than his head, and Spike’s entire body is just a round cactus with stick legs. If you make those signature features extra big, your doodle will be recognizable even if the rest of the lines are messy.
- Stick to 3-4 core colors per brawler: The Brawl Stars art team uses extremely limited, distinct color palettes for every character, so you don’t need to blend shades or add fancy gradients to make your art look official. For Spike, you only need light purple for his body, dark purple for his spots, green for his leaves, and yellow for his spikes. For Colt, you just need blue, tan, white, and brown. If you use those core colors, no one will notice if you got the exact shade of his shirt wrong.
- Add one signature detail first: If you draw the most iconic part of a brawler first, the rest of the design will fall into place easily, and you’ll avoid the common mistake of making a doodle that just looks like a random cartoon person. For Crow, that’s his sharp beak mask. For Leon, it’s his lynx-eared hood. For Piper, it’s her wide, frilly hat. Once you have that one detail down, you can build the rest of the body around it, and it will always look like the right brawler.
So many new artists make the mistake of trying to make their brawlers look too realistic, and that’s exactly what makes them look off. The official art style is intentionally goofy and over the top, so wonky lines and weird proportions actually fit the vibe better than perfectly smooth, realistic drawings. I once drew a Shelly doodle with a lopsided shotgun that was way too big, and my club members said it looked exactly like the in-game character, no notes needed.
How to Practice and Improve Your Brawl Stars Doodles Fast
You don’t have to spend hours every day practicing to get good at drawing brawlers. Even 10 minutes of doodling a day while you wait for matches to load or ride the bus will make a huge difference in just a couple of weeks. First, start small. Draw 2-inch tall mini doodles of brawlers in the margin of your notebook or on sticky notes, instead of trying to draw full page, detailed art right away. Small doodles have less room for mistakes, and they’re way less pressure to get perfect. You don’t have to share your art if you don’t want to – a lot of new artists get discouraged because they think they have to post every doodle they make on social media for feedback, but practice is just for you. If you’re happy with your doodle, that’s all that matters. If you’re really struggling to get the shapes right, don’t be afraid to trace official art for the first few tries. Tracing is not cheating when you’re learning – it helps you build muscle memory for the specific shapes and proportions of Brawl Stars characters, and after 2 or 3 traces, you’ll be able to draw the same character freehand without even thinking about it. Once you get comfortable with 2 or 3 simple brawlers, you can start experimenting with more complex ones, or even drawing your own custom brawler designs. I started with El Primo, then moved to Spike, then to Crow, and now I draw custom brawlers for my club members for fun, and it all started with 10 minute doodles between matches.
Drawing your favorite Brawl Stars characters doesn’t have to be a stressful experience reserved for people with art degrees. It’s supposed to be a fun way to show your love for the game, even if your first few doodles look a little silly. Now that you know how to draw Brawl Stars characters easy, all you have to do is grab a pencil, pull up a reference of your favorite brawler, and start scribbling. You might be surprised at how good your first doodle turns out.