How to Draw the Dark Mark

Reviewed by Jeanine Hattas Wilson

Last Updated: December 17, 2023

The Dark Mark represents Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters in Harry Potter. Drawing it may seem difficult and be a long process, but it's simpler than it seems. It's a process of mainly just mapping out the shapes, drawing the outline and highlighting other features.^{[1]
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1
Get a reference image if you can, then lightly map out the general shapes. This image has a circle for the skull, two more circles for the snake's body, and a hook for the snake's head.
2
Draw the outline of a skull. A circle and chin will do. It doesn't have to fit your earlier circle exactly; that's just a rough guideline.

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3
Draw the basic facial features. Two round, oblong shapes will work for the eye-sockets and a round triangle represents the nose. Two slanted "L's" for the cheekbones will suffice.
4
Outline the upper jaw. At this point, it should slightly resemble Darth Vader's helmet.
5
Make some more light guidelines, but detail the position of the snake this time. It protrudes from the skull and then twists on itself into a figure eight. It should follow the general path of the guide you made earlier.
- Give yourself a guide for the snake's head. We see a circle for the skull and a rectangle for the jaws. What about you?
6
Edit the spots where the lines cross. Erase as needed so that the snake overlaps itself.
7
Sketch the places where the snake turns, exposing its belly when it had shown its back and vice versa. Erase your original guidelines while leaving one for the chin.
8
Refine these lines and darken them. Use your reference image to draw the snake's head.
9
Add some patterns and shading to the snake.
- The canon snake has patterns that look like smooshed together hills, in either a group of one, two, or three, in a dark color. A lighter color is used to make spots inside of those hills, as well as to color the surrounding skin.
10
Shade the skull. Everything inside the outline of the mandible (lower jaw) should be pitch black.

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Tips

Color! Nothing has to be in black and white unless you want it that way. Maybe adding some green in the eye sockets would make it look eerie.

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Add some more advanced shading. This article only uses a light color and a dark one. Determine a light source, and then see what you can do with midtones!

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