Drawing a cartoon dinosaur is all about shapes. Since dinosaurs are big, lumbering animals, it's easy to draw such a broad creature. Kids 5 to 8 years old will have fun drawing this prehistoric wonder. Use crayon, pencils, markers or whatever drawing utensils are desired. The easiest dinosaur a child can draw is an apatosaurus.
Body
An apatosaurus has a large body, so the first step is to draw a big sideways oval. Make sure to draw it in the middle of the paper, and don't make it too big, because you have to attach a long neck, legs and a tail.
Limbs and Head
The legs of an apatosaurus are similar to those of an elephant: That is, they're tubular. Along the bottom of the oval, draw eight straight lines of the same length (four of the lines should be grouped at the left, four at the right). Then, use four half-oval shapes to connect the lines. For the first half oval, start at the line furthest to the left and connect it to the line immediately right. Now hop over to the third from left line and continue the process, until you have four complete legs.
For the tail, draw two curvy lines that start at the top right side of the oval and attach to make the tip of a tail at some point away from the oval (make the tail as long as you like).
The neck should be about the same length as the tail, drawn in the same way on the left side of the oval, but it shouldn't connect at a tip. Instead, the two lines should curve and end parallel to each other. At the end of the two lines, draw a smaller oval to form the head. You now have the complete shape of a dinosaur.
Details
Your dinosaur now needs a face, toenails and color. In the center of the small oval head, draw two tiny circles for eyes. Below the eyes, draw a half oval for a smile.
Down at each foot, draw three or four half ovals for toenails, the curve side turned upward.
Now you can color your dinosaur however you want. If you want him to be striped or spotted, that's totally fine. After all, scientists don't know what colors dinosaurs were, so you can be as creative as you wish.
