How to Draw a Pizza Slice in 6 Steps

by easydrawingtips

This step-by-step tutorial shows an easy way to draw a pizza slice topped with pepperoni, mushrooms, and bell peppers. It includes line drawing and coloring examples.

You can see a preview of the main drawing stages for the pizza slice in the image above. There are also additional examples included in some of the steps.

The tutorial is fairly simple and is intended for beginner and intermediate artists, especially those who want to practice their line drawing and basic shading.

It’s recommended to start the drawing with light pencil lines that are easy to erase in case of a mistake. The lines in the examples are dark simply to make them easier to see. You can darken your lines before coloring the pizza slice.

Supplies Needed for This Pizza Slice Drawing

Regular HB Graphite Pencil: For the initial line drawing.
White Paper: Drawing paper or standard printer paper.
Eraser: A kneaded eraser can be helpful for correcting some of the smaller details, but a standard eraser is also completely fine.
Fine-Point Black Marker (recommended): For getting black outlines similar to those shown in the examples.
Colored Pencils or Paints (recommended): Good options that allow for easy color variations.
Drawing Tablet and Digital Software (alternative): Allows for easy black outlines and solid bright colors similar to the examples.

Step 1 – Outline the Shape of the Pizza Slice

First, outline the main shape of the slice. In this example, it’s drawn from a 3/4 view, which is a good choice since it’s a fairly natural angle to view a pizza slice from. It will also allow you to show a good amount of detail in later steps.

Draw the slice similar to a triangle, but with one side (the crust) slightly rounded. Define it with somewhat wavy lines to make things look more natural (pizza slices generally aren’t perfect). Due to perspective, the far side of the slice in the background will appear smaller than the one in the foreground. Keep this in mind when drawing.

For more on perspective, see:

Perspective Drawing Tutorial for Beginners

While this initial step is fairly simple, it’s also very important because if you don’t get the correct shape at this stage, the rest of your drawing will look off as well. Be sure that the slice looks right before moving on to the smaller parts of the pizza.

Step 2 – Draw the Toppings

Drawing a pizza is similar to making one. You can draw the toppings one set at a time. Start with the larger items, the pepperoni slices.

As the pizza is being viewed at an angle, the pepperoni slices will appear oval in shape, with a few of them partially cut off at the sides.

Once you have all of the slices outlined, add their edges to show their thickness. Also, as pepperoni distorts when it’s baked, add several wavy lines inside each slice to show the warps in their shapes.

After the pepperoni, add the mushrooms. Similar to the pepperoni slices, first outline their shapes and then add the edges to show their thickness. Again, keep in mind that these are drawn at an angle and in perspective.

Finally, add the bell pepper slices. You can think of their shapes as little bent rectangles. Place them facing in different directions, filling up the open spots on the surface of the slice.

Step 3 – Draw the Cheese Bubbles

For the next set of details, add some cheese bubbles to the pizza slice, which tend to pop up when it bakes. You can define these with broken-up lines that create oval-like shapes.

The breaks in the outlines are a small but very important detail. Without them, the bubbles would appear too “solid” and look like individual toppings.

Step 4 – Draw the Pores in the Dough

For the last set of details, add the pores along the sides that are created as the pizza dough bakes. Draw these as little curves of different sizes. You can place a few on their own and others in small batches. Try to keep their positions somewhat random but at the same time, try to space them out across the entire side.

Once done with this step, you can darken your lines by tracing over them.

Step 5 – Add Color

When coloring, leave a few light spots along the cheese and pepperoni. These will be little reflections from the shiny surfaces that are created when the pizza is baked and the fat in the cheese and pepperoni comes up to the surface.

You can either outline these beforehand or simply create them as you color. Alternatively, you can also use a white correction pen to add them in afterwards.

If drawing digitally, you can simply add them on a new layer over top of the color.

Color the slice as follows:

Cheese: yellow
Crust: light orange/brown
Side of Slice: light yellow
Pepperoni: pink (with a bit of orange)
Mushrooms: grey/brown with darker parts under the cap
Peppers: green

Step 6 – Add Shading

Adding color to the drawing definitely makes its different parts stand out more. However, you may notice that the example in the previous step still looks a little plain. To fix this, you can add some very basic shadows and darken a few parts of the pizza.

Before shading any object, you should first consider the lighting setup that it’s in. This particular drawing is done as though the light source is positioned above, very slightly behind, and to the right of the slice. This means that the lightest areas will generally be on top, and the shadows will be cast slightly to the left and towards the viewer.

Add shadows in the following areas:

Shade the Non-Upward-Facing Sides: Darken the non-upward-facing sides of all of the toppings (pepperoni, mushrooms, and peppers) as well as the cheese.
Shadows Cast by the Toppings: Add short shadows cast by each of the toppings towards their bottom left sides.
Main Slice Shadow: Add a shadow cast by the main slice towards the bottom left.
Pepperoni Warps: Darken the areas around the warps in the pepperoni.
Slice Pores: Add tiny shadows around the pores on the side of the slice.

Darken the following areas:

Crust: Make the backward-facing side of the crust a darker orange brown.
Cheese Bubbles: Color the areas of the cheese where the bubbles were formed a light brown.

Once finished with the above, you should be done with the drawing.

Conclusion

This tutorial shows how to create a simple yet nice-looking and detailed drawing of a pizza slice. As already mentioned, drawing a pizza slice is somewhat similar to making a pizza. You will want to first establish the shape of the slice (kind of like making the pizza dough) and then place the different toppings on top of it one set at a time. You will then want to add the smaller details, such as the cheese bubbles and the pores in the dough that are created as the pizza bakes.

If you like these types of simple, step-by-step tutorials, you can also try the following: