How to Draw a Soccer Ball

In today's sporty drawing exercise, we show you how to draw a soccer ball in three easy steps. Soccer is a sport loved by millions worldwide, and the soccer ball is an essential piece of equipment on the field. Create your own illustrated ball for all your sports clipart projects, such as soccer stickers, personalized t-shirts, sublimated water bottles, and more.

Follow our beginner drawing guide using any medium you have on hand. These can be colored pencils, crayons, and paint or digital apps on your tablet or computer.

For our ball illustration, we are using Procreate. If you are using Procreate, check out our collection of FREE Procreate brushes to create your outlines and add color to your drawing.

Step 1 - Create a Soccer Ball Sketch

The first step is to sketch the soccer ball lightly with a pencil. This step will help you establish the ball's size and placement on your paper. You can use any erasable or light sketching medium in this step.

Draw the Ball Shape

Start by drawing a large circle in the center of your page. Create a perfect circle by tracing around a round object or using QuickShape in Procreate.

Create the Pattern

In the center of your circle, sketch a small pentagon shape. Get straight lines by carefully drawing each side of the shape or using a ruler.

Next, draw short lines halfway to the edge of the ball sketch. Draw each of the five lines from the corners of the pentagon shape.

Continue adding shape to the soccer ball pattern by drawing three angled lines between each of the five short lines you drew before. This will create the iconic design on your soccer ball. You can also create a honeycomb pattern in Illustrator and layer it inside your ball.

Finally, finish the pattern by drawing angled lines from each corner toward the ball shape sketch. Your soccer ball should look similar to our example image below.

Step 2 - Define the Ball Outline

It's time to define the outline of the ball more clearly. Start by tracing over each sketch line with a black marker, paint, or Procreate monoline brush. Once you have outlined the pentagons and hexagons, you can erase the rough sketches you drew in step one. This will leave you with a defined soccer ball outline.

Step 3 - Apply your Soccer Ball Color and Shading

Add shading and color to your soccer ball line art in the final step. Use any combination of colors or get a curated color palette to match a theme, like spring, boho, or Christmas.

Apply your base colors first. For our soccer ball clipart, we used dark gray and cream colors.

Next, create dimension and texture in your drawing by applying lighter and darker shades for highlights and shadows. Procreate texture brushes are a great way to add shading and give your drawing texture.

Fantastic work on your soccer ball illustration! Why not create a ball to match special holidays, like adding a heart pattern or Christmas trees? Quickly combine the ball with other sports clipart to create a collection you can use on your next craft or project.

Create your own hand-drawn collection of sports objects by following our free drawing guides. We have tutorials on how to draw a football helmet and to draw a volleyball.

Thank you for joining and following along with this beginner drawing guide. Check out our library of FREE drawing tutorials to have more fun creating unique artwork.