R in Bubble Letters

Outline version to colour or trace

How to draw a bubble capital R

1. 1Pencil a thin skeleton of a vertical stem, a bowl in the top half, and a diagonal leg from the bowl's lower edge to a point on the baseline to the right.
2. 2Inflate the stem and bowl just like a capital P, making the ring even thickness and ending the bowl a little above the middle height.
3. 3Draw the leg as a fat capsule starting where the bowl returns to the stem, angled down and to the right, with a round foot on the baseline.
4. 4Check the gap between bowl, stem and leg. Round that gap into a soft triangular hole, big enough to see when the letter is small.
5. 5Erase every line where leg and bowl overlap, then re-ink the outer outline so leg and bowl look like one balloon.

Tip: Start the leg a little to the right of the stem, not at its base. If the leg shares the stem's bottom edge, the letter loses its air and the bottom turns into one heavy blob.

How to draw a bubble lowercase r

1. 1Draw the x-height and baseline guides and a thin vertical stem between them, with a short curved arm leaving the stem near the top and heading right.
2. 2Inflate the stem as a capsule with round ends, as thick as the capitals in your word.
3. 3Inflate the arm as a small thick curve, rising from the upper third of the stem and ending in a round blob a little above the x-height midpoint.
4. 4Round the join between arm and stem so a small notch shows under the arm, like the shoulder of a lowercase n cut short.
5. 5Erase overlaps and check that the arm is shorter than a full n arch, so the letter stays unmistakably r.

Tip: Keep the arm end level with the top of the stem. If it droops, the r gets a sad hook, and if it rises above the stem the letter looks like a tiny flag.

What makes R awkward or easy

R stacks three shapes, stem, bowl and leg, and each pair makes a gap. The triangle between bowl, stem and leg is the counter people notice, and it often closes up when the leg is too fat or starts too low. The leg's angle matters too: too steep and it looks like an upright K arm, too flat and it kicks out like a P with a ski. Lowercase r is almost the reverse problem, because its arm has so little room that it can read as a v or c if curved wrongly.

Variations

A straight, vertical leg gives R a stocky poster look; a curved leg that swings out like a skirt looks friendlier and more cartoonish. Add a highlight on the bowl and a shadow beneath the leg for a glossy 3D version. For graffiti, let the leg extend far under the next letter. A kid-friendly R can be drawn as a P plus a banana-shaped leg, and an outline-only R makes a good colouring page with three separate regions.

Common mistakes with bubble R

• The leg starts at the base of the stem, which leaves no gap and a heavy bottom.

  Begin the leg from the bowl's lower edge a little right of the stem, so a triangular hole remains between the three parts.

• The bowl is too large and pushes the leg to the extreme right.

  Keep the bowl at or above the halfway line and its width equal to the stem and leg combined, then the leg falls naturally under it.

• Lowercase r has a long arm and looks like a v or a y.

  Shorten the arm so it ends just beyond the stem's thickness, and curve it slightly upward.

• The leg is thinner than the stem.

  Draw the leg as a capsule with the same outline distance as the stem, then let the diagonal slant do the rest.

Ideas for bubble R

R is a handy letter for names such as Ruby, Rohan and Riley, for 'Rock', 'Rainbow' and 'Retro', and for monograms where its leg can swing out to hold a flourish. In classrooms, R is often paired with P and B as a family of stem-and-bowl letters for teaching shape relationships.

Bubble R: questions