1920s Celluloid And Rhinestone Pendant With Jet Beads

Sleeping Sun.  / i wanna try to draw this kind of scene for a long time , however, my perspective and light is so weak,there are so many mistakes. i can’t catch the feeling well,but i really try my best this time…..I SHOULD WORK HARDER!……..these are actually layers but not process?

Leather Belt Pouch - Dragon / Wyrm / Serpent - Celtic - Viking Inspired - Festival Bushcraft Possibilities Bag

Byzantine Fashions by Tom Tierney

– Horse Drawing Tips –

Hello, all! I thought I’d put this together to try and give people a place to start when trying to learn about and understand horse anatomy. Drawing horses, like anything else, definitely requires some work and observation to be able to draw confidently, but some of the these ideas/tips can help you find ways of analyzing references and simplifying forms to make the journey easier. Drawing horses doesn’t have to be scary! Read on for some notes on the drawings above…

Basic Shapes of a horse body: 

Use these shapes to help you block in the body forms of your horse and to help you simplify the anatomy of the horses you draw. When you study photos of horses, try to see how these shapes move/stretch in relation to the horse’s pose/action.

Horse Anatomy Studies:

1) Standing/Walking:

a. Reference photo – Start with a photograph that you’d like to study. Try to choose a clear one with visible anatomy (obscured as little as possible) and interesting shapes.

b. Outline – The outline gives me a point to start from to analyze the anatomy of the horse from the photograph. I use it as a guide for the next few steps.

c. Skeleton – The skeleton usually takes too much time to do with every photograph, but it’s very helpful to be aware of the bones of a horse, so you know what you’re working with. Do a few of these with a drawing/photograph of a horse skeleton for reference and familiarize yourself!

d. Simplified Skeleton – Then draft out a quick, “simplified” skeleton. Try to block out the important angles, joints, and important anatomy reference points, such as the shoulder/elbow bones and the hip/knee bones. These angles will go a long way to helping you get the proper feel for a horse and the way its body naturally moves.

e. Simple Block Shapes – From there, block out the forms of the horse. Keep the skeleton in mind, but be aware of the masses of muscle and fat that moves with and covers the bones. Find ways to simplify the shapes that work for you, and try using these shapes in the future when blocking in a drawing of a horse.

f. Curves vs. Straights – Juxtaposing curved (both concave and convex) and straight lines helps to emphasize the anatomy, and add a pleasing sense of rhythm to your drawing. Experiment with emphasizing convex curves vs. concave curves, or straights against curves, etc., to get a look that is pleasing to you and also compliments the horse’s anatomy.

2) The Trot: The trot is a horse’s natural “jogging” gait, the next gait up from a walk. When trotting, the horse almost always has at least one, usually two, hooves on the ground at any moment. Remember that in most cases, horses walk/trot/canter/etc. with opposite legs moving together or in sequence; for example, right front leg raised, and left back leg raised, while the other two legs (left front leg and right front leg) are bearing the weight. Remember this when sketching your horse’s pose! (The exceptions to this are pacers and Icelandic horses doing the “tolt”, feel free to look them up!) When drawing this gait, it is sometimes helpful to emphasize the two opposing legs that mirror each other; with two legs straight/weight-bearing, and too legs extended/bent/moving. Keep the opposing legs in tandem with one another and you’ll have this gait down!

3) The Canter/gallop: Cantering is a horse’s natural running gait. In this gait it’s possible for all of a horse’s hooves to leave the ground for a moment with each stride. If a canter is a horse’s equivalent a human’s run, then a gallop is a sprint; in a gallop a horse reaches its maximum stride length and speed, though they don’t have the endurance to keep a full-on gallop up for long. When drawing the canter, watch out for which legs are bearing the weight and use that the guide you. (In my photo example, the right back leg and the left front leg are currently bearing the weight, with the right front leg about to take the weight to allow the left front leg to raise. Ugh, complicated…!)

4) The Jump: It’s when jumping that a horse reaches its maximum “stretch”! Keep in mind that a horse’s back is not very flexible (which is what makes them great to ride!), so try to keep that spine straighter/stiffer than you would for a dog or a cat. Bending the horse’s spine too much will start to make it look broken, or at the very least, very old and decrepit, as horse’s spine starts to bend/sag with age.

5) The Landing: To emphasize the weight of a horse coming down on its front hooves, be sure to bend it’s “toe joint”, or pastern, so that its fetlock or knuckle joint is nearly touching the ground. Let that joint bend to absorb the shock of the landing!

Try to avoid these common anatomy mistakes when drawing horses. Study photos and the horse’s skeleton/anatomy to avoid these! (And seriously, please forgive how horrible these drawings are! I literally whipped them up in only a few minutes, haha…)

Afficher davantage

Viking off camp :)  © Ysambre fauntography 2016

So I was chatting with the lovely Justin Oaksford yesterday, and he casually asked if I used photo reference for my recent Rolemodels piece- not as a bad thing, but because the pose and the camera angle read well.  Pretty sure I grinned like an idiot when he brought it up because, goddammit, I’m proud that the work shows!  I’ve felt like my work has been somewhat stilted as of late- I could feel myself subconsciously trending towards easier angles, easier poses, easier expressions just because it's slightly less frustrating for my brain to process- so getting that confirmation from a colleague was pretty damn satisfying.

I think there’s a tendency for artists to take pride in being able to draw out of your head, and, while that’s an admittedly important skill, what’s actually important is what that skill implies- it implies that you’ve internalized reference.  That you’ve spent so much time looking at the world around you, studying it, drawing from it, breaking it down, that you’ve amassed an extensive mental library that you can draw from.  You are Google reborn in the shallow husk of a human being.

But heck, the world’s a big place- what are the chances that you ever get to a point that you’ve internalized all of it?  Internalized it AND ALSO are never going to forget it ever?  Probably no chance at all.  Sorry buddy.  So rather than bemoaning the fact that we don’t have impenetrable search engine cyborg brains- yet- you sure as hell better still be using reference to fill in/refresh those empty shelves in your mental library.  You shouldn’t have worm-ridden books about dinosaur anatomy from the 60’s in there.  Stegosauruses with brains in their tails?  CLEAN THAT SHIT OUT.

So my general process for using reference of any sort is:

loose thumbnails and brainstorming.  If you have an idea, get that raw thing- unadulterated in it’s potential shittiness- onto paper.  Good art is a combination of both instinct and discipline, so you don’t want to entirely discount those lightning strikes of brilliance.  Or idiocy.  Happens to all of us.

research and reference.  Start gathering and internalizing whatever reference is pertinent to your piece- could be diagrams, art, photos, good old-fashioned READIN’, whathaveyou.  Please note that this doesn’t mean find one picture of a giraffe- this means find tons of photos of giraffes, read about giraffes, understand giraffes, and learn how to incorporate that knowledge into your art with purpose and intent (Justin uses the word “intent” a lot so I’m stealing it).  Don’t blindly copy what you see, but understand how to integrate it in an interesting and informed manner.

studies and practice.  Could be lumped in with the previous step, granted, but it’s worth reiterating- if you’re drawing something new, it’s worth doing some studies.  You discover things that you wouldn’t otherwise by just staring at them.  It’s weird how I’m still learning this- “Gee golly, six-shooters are way easier to draw now that I’ve drawn a ton of them!” Yes wow Claire BRILLIANT.  Gold star.

go for the gold.  Finally, I’m sure it goes without saying, you integrate all of that research and knowledge into your initial thumbnails.  If you learned something about anatomy, or fashion, or color, or butts, now you can drastically improve your original idea with this newfound knowledge.  Also, per the images above, this is also your chance to improve on the reference- photos are a fantastic tool, but trust your instincts.  Cameras can’t make informed decisions.

…So that’s my soapbox- it’s pretty easy, and it’s totally worth it.  Research and reference lets you stand on the shoulders of giants- it lends legitimacy, specificity, and allure to your work that wouldn’t be there if you were just drawing out of your head 100% of the time.  To put it simply- it makes your work ownable.  It makes you stand out.

It makes you a better artist. :)

-C

art nouveau crown illustrations

Homemade camera rig takes stunning close-up pictures of snowflakes