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A countryball looks simple, and that is exactly why a sloppy one stands out. Viewers have seen thousands of them, so they notice when the eyes are the wrong size, the flag slides out of the body or the outline is thin and wobbly.
This tutorial breaks a countryball into four parts you draw in order: the body, the flag, the outline and the eyes. The method works in any program, from Moho and Adobe Animate to Krita or a phone app. Where a step depends on the software, you'll find a note for the common ones.
What makes a countryball look right
Countryballs (the style grew out of the Polandball comics) follow a few loose rules. You don't have to obey every one, but knowing them helps you break them on purpose instead of by accident.
- The body is the flag. The whole ball is filled with the country's flag. There is no separate face area.
- Round, but not perfect. A slightly squashed, hand-drawn circle reads as more alive than a perfect geometric one.
- A thick, dark outline holds the shape together, especially at the small sizes people watch on phones.
- Two white eyes, no pupils. Classic countryballs have plain white eyes. Expression comes from the shape of the eyes, not from pupils.
- No arms, no legs and usually no mouth. Countryballs float, bounce and roll. Objects they hold simply hover beside them.
A few countries traditionally get a different body. Israel is drawn as a cube, Kazakhstan as a brick and Singapore as a triangle. These are community running jokes, and fans will notice if you get them wrong.
Step by step
Step 1: Draw the body shape
Start with an ellipse tool, then make it a little imperfect: slightly wider than tall, with a flatter bottom so the ball looks like it rests on the ground. In Moho, draw an ellipse on a vector layer and nudge a couple of points with the Transform Points tool. In Adobe Animate, draw an oval and pull its edge gently with the Selection tool. In Krita or on paper, draw it freehand.
Keep this shape on its own layer and name it, for example "body". You'll reuse it as a mask for the flag and as the outline.
From ellipse to countryball: squash the shape, fill it with the flag, add the outline, then the eyes. Step 2: Add the flag
Draw the flag as a simple rectangle on a layer below the outline, larger than the ball on every side. Use the official colours: Wikipedia's article for each flag lists them, and many governments publish the exact values.
Simplify detailed emblems. A coat of arms that is beautiful on a real flag turns into noise at 200 pixels wide. Keep the shapes that make the flag recognisable and drop the fine detail. The flags tutorial covers stars, crosses and crests in depth.
Step 3: Clip the flag inside the body
Use the body shape as a mask so the flag only shows inside the ball. In Moho, put the body and flag layers in a group, set the group to mask its contents, and mark the body as the mask. In Adobe Animate, turn the body layer into a mask layer above the flag. In Krita, use an inherit alpha or clipping setup.
Masking instead of cutting the flag means you can still move the flag inside the ball later. That matters once you animate: when a ball turns its head, its flag can shift a little to sell the turn.
Draw the flag bigger than the ball and let the body mask it. Nothing spills out, and the flag can still move. Step 4: Draw a thick outline
Give the body a dark stroke on top of the flag. Roughly 4 to 5 percent of the ball's width works well, so a 200-pixel ball gets an outline around 8 to 10 pixels thick. Use a very dark grey or black and round joins so the outline has no sharp corners.
Keep the outline on the topmost body layer so the flag never covers it, and use the same thickness for every character in a scene. Mismatched outlines are the quickest way to make a video look amateur.
Step 5: Place the eyes
Draw two white ovals with the same dark outline, a little taller than they are wide. Put them slightly above the middle of the ball, close together, with roughly one eye's width between them. Shifting both eyes towards one side makes the ball look in that direction.
Leave out the pupils. Classic countryball eyes are blank white, and that blankness is part of the humour. A ball looks surprised, worried or smug purely from the outline of its eyes.
Step 6: Give it an expression
Change the eye shape to change the mood. Cut a straight brow line across the top of each eye, low towards the middle for anger, low towards the outside for sadness. Flip the eyes into upside-down "U" shapes for a happy, squinting face. Make them bigger and rounder for shock.
Save each expression as its own drawing or switch layer. Once you animate, you can swap between them in a single frame.
Neutral, happy, angry and sad. Only the eye shapes change; there are never any pupils.
Common mistakes
- Eyes too small or too far apart. Small eyes far apart look like a different art style. Keep them big and close.
- A thin outline. It looks fine zoomed in and disappears on a phone screen. Check your drawing at the size viewers will see it.
- Flags with too much detail. Simplify emblems until they read at a glance.
- Wrong colours or proportions. A flag that is almost right looks wrong to people from that country. Check proportions and colours against a reliable source.
- Different styles in one scene. Draw every character with the same body shape, outline and eye size.
Practice exercise
Where to go next
A drawing that sits still is only the start. Learn how to animate countryballs next, or rig yours with bones in Moho so you never have to redraw it. Not sure which program to use? Read the countryball animation software guide.
Learn it step by step in the Beginner's Course in Countryball Animation
Eleven chapters that take you from installing the software to a full scene with flags, backgrounds, movement and a boat trip. No animation experience needed. Just curiosity and a mouse.
- Set up the software and find your way around it without panic.
- Draw clean, consistent countryballs, including tricky flags like the UK and USA.
- Rig characters with bones so one drawing can move a hundred ways.