what-the-floofin:

Mmmm there are so many guides that cover what I do, and I really don’t do anything more than those. Still use the whole blocks and sticks and form building and whatnot. And a buttload of references. Anything I could say different would kinda step beyond the stage of simplicity?

To offer something though I would like, suggest tweaking the use of circles when it comes to drawing horses. Or anything, really. Circles are great and highly accessible for fast, general drawing, but few natural things are perfectly round. Look at a horse from the front or back - it’s square and flat and meaty and saggy too, depending on your angle.

So like, I dunno, if you wanna step it up a notch, try changing your use of building-circles into something like this

And especially practice being able to see these shapes in dimension

And then piece them together. The triangle will really help guide the line up. Highly recommend.

Honestly I just follow the same gist of Hubedihubbe’s quick tut (please check it out, very good points made, much cleaner, actually labelled) so I kind of feel like I’m parroting here but.. I break down the rest in lines and diamonds.

As a personal preference, I like marking in the shoulder blade to elbow and the hip to knee, as they create pretty important shapes towards horse recognition. If something keeps looking off, check your leg length. A super rough way to get a close idea of what you need can be found in using most of the shoulder block for a landmark? It’s not perfect maths, it’s a rough tell. The hind legs are then worked out via the red line, setting the hocks above the intersection across the knees 

And uh, it goes on from there. You gotta look at pictures, do the study, and learn the meats. No real other way around that part.

There’s a horse bod.

But the reason of learning how to see those shapes in dimension is so that you can push your poses further! Try piecing it together with your front-view knowledge. And look at references, always! 

Shoulders are pretty narrow compared to the belly and hindquarters, unless you start looking into the draft breeds - then both ends more or less square up together. But moving on, more leggies are slapped on that thing

And fleshed out with all that meat knowledge :P (I know I haven’t gone into heads but this was about centaurs anyway. This guy just felt like he needed one)

And when it comes to practice and learning, don’t be afraid to simply draw these shapes directly over an image. It will help familiarise you with how these base forms interact with one another, how far they can squash and stretch and look at a whole variety of angles. It’s just practice!

Doing that helps to gain a solid concept of the subject, so that when you do set out on your own you can find that convincing territory.

So hey, this has been a very long and terrible not-tutorial. More like insight or something, and would only be helpful if you’re somewhat familiar with horses and already got the fundamentals of drawing down pat, since I skipped over a lot. 

Haven’t drawn a horse before though? I recommend you the Shrimp method

Anyway, hope all this was kinda interesting