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How I Draw Dynamic Poses — Description
Please excuse any spelling errors, I've always be awful at spelling! As you can see, this is just a quick tut. - if I was finishing something important, I'd spell check. So keep you panties smooth and out of your butt!

So!I've always thought about doing a tutorial like this, but am too lazy to make one pretty and organized. Then I just ended up doodling this for warm up, and thought what the hell! It might come in handy for a few people. What's the harm in throwing this up on dA?

So, here we are!Intro
This is just my PERSONAL method of sketching, especially when it comes to sketching without a reference or a "weird" pose. It probably won't work for everyone the way it works for me, but it's a fun 'get loose' exercise as it is. If you have any questions, please ask!

1. Before you can do abnormal poses - you have to have a general understanding of horse anatomy. Not veterinarian anatomy, just you need to know the major joints - how they hinge (aka, the stifle has a limited range of motion, this is key in knowing how far you can extend/flex a leg!) they general length between the major joints (big or small, the ration from the fetlock (ankle) to the knee is the same on all horses), etc.

2. I always imagine a what I'm about to draw before I do it. Now, I don't mean imagine a pose. I mean see the horse doing what its doing. If you want to big, floaty warmblood trot, image you're watching one do it. See the spring, the suspension, the strain of the legs under the weight of the horse. Etc. I can stare at my canvas for up to 20 minutes just trying to isolate what is happening in that moment.
Seriously, it helps. Try it.

3. My favorite part. SCRIBBLE! No seriously - do it. The thing that people don't realize, is we all know how a horse moves (assuming you've at least watched a couple movies with horses in it, and that's like bare minimum). We know what they look like - you can see it in your head right? So why can't you translate that image in your head down onto paper? Your translator (being your hand) is being an asshole and giving you crap information. So, take the thought out of it. Just see that moving image in your head (step two) and start doodling. Think silhouettes more that gestures or sketching. Just let it flow out of your pencil - the limbs will find balance (it will get easier the more you practice, obviously) and you'll find yourself with the gesture of a very fluid, animated horse! And that was the whole idea!

4. Isolate the joints. Ugh - my LEAST favorite part. This is where you have to screw your thinking brain back in and say, ok - here's what's actually possible. So - flying back up to step one - you need to think about the relationship between the joints and mark them on your scribble (I usually do it in a different color than the scribble). The joints I personally mark are - Front Legs: elbow, knee, fetlock, Back Legs: stifle, hock, fetlock. IF it is a particularly difficult pose to figure out, it doesn't hurt to mark off the top of the shoulders (by the withers), the point of the shoulder, the point of hip, and the tip of the buttox. These dots can EASILY overlap - do not worry about that. What you're doing in this stage is just looking through the "meat" of the horse and figuring out the skeleton underneath (aka conformation) so you know how to do the lines later. This step take knowledge and practice. If you don't put the time into learning the horse - you won't get the results you want. It's as simple as that!

5. Draw/sketch over. This is easy and self explanatory. Make a new layer, lower the opacity on your base sketch and then draw the horse over it. Done!

From here I would have my base sketch actually done (that's all that was, was leading up to the base sketch) - there would be some awkward angles that I would fix, work on it a bit more until I'm satisfied then either start coloring, or do detailed lines.

This whole process can take up to 30 minutes or a couple seconds. It just depends!

Well, that's all I really have! I know it's wordy - and probably doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. But! It's how I do it! And I hope maybe it help you a bit!

Feel free to ask any questions - and if you try this method, I'd LOVE to see the results!

This Method Was Used In

Jag6201

2013 Copyrighted =Jag6201 aka Molly Mellinger