Did you ever draw bubble letters as a kid? No? Just me? Well… then I hope you want to learn to draw them right now. If you were never quite obsessed with typography like I was and you’re just now wanting to know how to draw bubble letters, this article is for you.
Bubble letters are easy and fun to draw. They can be a great addition to your lettering skills, whether you want to draw just for fun or for a project. Let’s dive in!
What are Bubble Letters?
Bubble letters, also called “softies”, originated from Graffiti art. NYC artist Phase 2 is credited with inventing this style in the 1970s. Large, round letters make this style unique and versatile. They are fun, playful, and relatively easy and quick to draw, which explains their popularity. It’s called bubble letters for a reason – it really resembles bubbles, or sometimes people even call it balloons.
Why Learn How to Draw Bubble Letters?
Is there any other reason than you only want to have fun drawing letters? Well, yes! Learning how to draw bubble letters can be beneficial as you’re including a new technique to your lettering skill set, that can then be incorporated into your projects. Whether for a client, a passion project, or just because, this style is a great addition to your art.
Tools You’ll Need to Get Started
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If you’re an analog person
- Paper: for practice, any printer paper works just fine.
- Pencil: any type of pencil will do, but aim for one with a soft lead so you can erase your sketch lines more easily.
- Eraser: I recommend using the Staedtler Mars Plastic Eraser
- Pen: Sakura Micron pens are my go-to for inking.
- Colored pencils or markers (optional): For markers, I love the Posca ones. For colored pencils, any you have lying around your house is fine. If you need a recommendation, Staetdler is a brand I trust!
If you’re a digital person
- iPad Pro (or any other drawing tablet)
- Apple Pencil
- A drawing app such as Adobe Fresco or Procreate
Step-by-Step Guide: How to Draw Bubble Letters A-Z
Step 1
Draw the skeleton (or outline) of your letter with a pencil. The same principles will apply to basically any letter you choose to draw. I’ll begin with the letter A, but afterward, I’ll be showing you examples of the entire alphabet.
Step 2
Let’s transform the letter outline we just created into round shapes. Just go over your lettering, drawing round shapes on the outside of your skeleton. Here’s where you can choose which style you’re going for – do you want a simple round bubble letter? Or you can choose to add more exaggerated round shapes to your bubble letters. For this step-by-step guide, I’m going to focus on drawing simple but a bit exaggerated bubble letters.
Step 3
Refine your curves and outline your letter with a pen (or marker). If you’re drawing digitally, you can choose a monoline brush for this part. After that, you can now erase your sketch. Let’s take a better look at our letter now that our pencil lines are gone!
Step 4
Add details: from now on we can add colors, shadows, and highlights to make our letters really stand out. If you’re drawing on paper, now is the perfect time to bring out your markers, colored pen and pencils! If you’re drying digitally, let’s bring in some colors with the brush you’re using.
Using Bubble Letters in Lettering Projects
There are a bunch of ways you can use bubble letters in your lettering work: from greeting cards to art prints, social media posts, stationery products, book covers, you name it! The possibilities are endless. For example, I’ve used some Bubble Letters in my Bookaholic Lettering Series.
For this piece, I used a different style of bubble letters for the word “happiness”. I also made all the letters overlap each other, which gives a fun look to the lettering!
How to Draw Bubble Letters – From A to Z
Letter A
We’ve already covered how to draw the letter A in the beginning of this post, but here’s a look at all the steps together:
Letter B
For the letter B, the same process can be done. Just draw a simple B and then build from there. For the inside, you can play with different shapes but I chose to go with a rectangle-ish shape.
Letters C and G
I decided to draw the letter C with straight lines so it would be easier to follow them. After drawing the skeleton, I simply followed the lines from the outside, making sure to make them round to get that bubble letter look.
The letter G is similar to the letter C, in terms of how we build them. Draw the G in straight lines so it’s easier to visualize the shape. Then you can go around the letter drawing round curves.
Letter D
The letter is another simple one, start with the simplest D you can draw and then round the outside of the letter to achieve the bubble look.
Letters E and F
The letters E and F are pretty similar in terms of shape, so it’s basically the same steps for those two letters. Write them out and them start drawing round curves from the outside.
Letter H
By now you’re probably getting how to build each one of these letters, right? The steps are pretty much the same for every letter, so I’ll just let you see those steps right now because otherwise, I’ll just be repeating myself. If a letter is built a bit differently, I’ll explain it.
Letter I and T
I drew the letters I and T pretty similarly. They both have almost the same skeleton, right? So let’s take a look at them:
Letter J
Letter K
Letter L
Letter M
Letter N
Letters O and Q
For the letters O and Q, you can pretty much just draw a big round circle, but I wanted to draw the outline first so you could see how it’s built first. You can basically start from step two with these letters and you’ll have one less thing to draw! Even easier.
For the Q, you just need to draw the little tail of the letter! It’s basically the same letter as the O, but with the added tail.
Letter P
Letter R
Letter S
Letter U
Letter V
Letter W
Letter X
Letter Y
Letter Z
Quick Tips for Drawing Bubble Letters
- Experiment with different shapes and forms
- Try different styles of bubble letters
- Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, bubble letters are all about being organic
- Try different colors, shadows, and details
- Add your personality and style to it
- They don’t have to be perfect, that’s the real fun of this style!
- Most of all, have fun!
