Hippotherapy
Help with drawing horse legs?
I've been doodling horses lately, and I've pretty much gotten the bodies and heads down, but I can't figure out how to position the legs correctly. I've heard that horse legs and feet are some of the hardest things to draw, so I was hoping for some kind of guide to help me find the basic shapes to work with. I looked online for a few, but they all showed the horse just as lines, then magically bulked out to have curves in all the right places, which is a bit too complicated. I'm not a professional artist or anything, just curious. Can anyone help me out? Either links or tips are appreciated. Thanks.
Public Comments
- try horses without legs or only from the neck up
- Try doing the best horse leg possible, and just oractice, it's pretty hard at first, but kind of find a picture of a horse you liek and look at it, closely--- eventually, after practice, you'll get the hang of it and able to draw a full horse in no time! ☺☺ Happy Drawings!☺☺
- Go to www.youtube.com and go up to the top of the screen and search for a video called "How to draw a Horse" it will give you an idea.
- Think of the legs as three long ovals. The thighs are the widest (almost triangular) oval, the knees are the smallest ovals and the forelegs are long, skinny ovals. Look at a picture of a horse DRAWING, not a photograph, and see how the legs follow the oval shape. Trace the drawing that you find and the experiement with the shapes until you find what works for you. Look at the website below for more instructions on other ways artists draw horses.
- Dig out some of your old plastic horses and stand them on your desk. Use them as your models. Draw them every which way. Also, find a book or site on-line that contains pictures of the skeletal design of a horse. Check out how their legs fit together; where what we consider `knees' and `ankles'' are located. Also notice the proportions of the length of body compared to the legs. Compile photos from the paper, magazines etc of horses that you can use as reference. I have a library full of reference books. If a customer needs a logo of with a growling leopard or a speeding locomotive--I look through my references and pull examples to make sure my work is anatomically or mechanically correct. As a little kid I figured out that a horse's front legs work like my own legs and the horse's rear legs operated on the same principles as my arms. Putting a side spot light on your plastic horse to create shadows will help you flesh out your linear designs to 3-D. Good luck and keep at it.
