How to draw a Leaf Insect – Exotic Insects drawing

Let us learn how to draw a leaf insect. As well as the stick insects, the leaf insects belong to the range of Phasmatodea, or ghost insects.

Their lifestyles are similar, same clumsiness, motionlessness, apathy of vegetable existence. But if the first ones are pretending the twigs and branches, the latter look a lot like different leaves. We should say different for there are many different species of leaf insects. Their similarity to the leaves is almost incredible.

Here is my Leaf Insect picture:

Learn how to draw it step by step.

To be true, to portray the leaf insect is more difficult than the stick insect. Actually the leaf insect pretends to be not a single leaf, butseveral connected together leaves at once.

The largest leaf is an abdomen, with its uneven, like those of a battered leaf, edges.

Abdomen is covered by the elytra, and the pattern of veins on the elytra serves as the pattern of those of the real leaf. It is understandable that triangular thorax (chest) and the head are pretending to be parts of the stem, while legs with their wide growths look lot like little leaves too.

Construction of its legs is complicated.

And now, after work is done, we should admit the sad fact: while simple-constructed stick insect perfectly fits to the branch like its part, the leaf insect with all its bells and whistles hardly fits to any branch as its leaf. This is another reason not to kill them, especially because they are absolutely harmless.

And, in addition, admire the drawing of a leaf- insect:

And one more leaf-insect picture:

It was an article from the series “How to draw exotic insects.”