Realistic Giraffe Standing on the Savanna Coloring Page

Drawn with real proportions rather than cartoon ones, this giraffe stands in a band of tall grass with its head turned slightly toward you. The neck rises at a natural angle, the back slopes down from shoulder to hip the way it does on a living animal, and the legs are long and lean with clearly marked joints.

The coat is the work on this page. Instead of even circles, the patches are irregular polygons that change size as they travel down the body, large and open across the shoulder and flank, small and tight along the lower legs and the throat. A sawtooth mane runs the length of the neck, and the tail ends in a drawn out tuft of fine strokes.

Along the bottom, a dense row of grass blades crosses the full width of the sheet. Each blade is a separate thin stroke and they overlap at every angle, which gives the lower third of the page a texture completely unlike the smooth fields above it.

Older kids and adults will get more out of this than a toddler would. The patch count alone runs into the dozens, which leaves room for a full range of browns and golds across one coat, and the grass band below takes two or three separate greens. Colored pencils hold the tight shapes near the hooves better than markers do.