Hello! If you are interested in starting to draw animals, or are already doing so, here are a few tips to help you improve! - 1. These tutorials are mostly meant for animal artists, and those who are interested in learning how to structure their animals, when they are already masters at humans! Though, it does not matter the level you are. All are welcome! 2. We will start with simple tips that I find useful for drawing animals traditionally, and digitally. These won’t be tips that are obvious, like referencing or anatomy checking, though. I will try to help you learn something new. 3. The ruler rule. Simply, when you are new to drawing a wolf, cat, hooved, etc, it’s always best to add a line. In some digital apps, you can create straight lines, while traditionally, you can chicken scratch a line or use a ruler. It’s not a rule, but when it gets difficult to draw, rulers are handy. Never chicken scratch a sketch, but for a line, it’s alright. 4. The globe test. Whenever finally finding all views of how to draw an animal, depending on your style, you should try the globe test. It took me a while to figure out how to draw front views, so I finally put it to test. You draw a picture of a side view, a front view, and ¾ view, and put them in order so it looks like your head is a globe. You can repeat some, and just flip them, but you will have to separately draw some of them. 5. Shading. Now, we all know to use multiply. And if you don’t, try to shade with the multiply tool, which can be found in different places depending on the app you use digitally. Never use black opacity. Try to shade with a slight 3D shape, and decide your lighting, since animals are way more complicated to shade, not like us, humans, which are smooth. Fur is complicated like clothes, with creases and foldes. Here are some fur examples: 6. Circles. When structuring animals, different animals have different circle shapes. For example, usually when drawing a wolf, you will use two circles, one at the chest area, one near the flanks. But for equine and hooved, you might use three. This is because their body structures are different. Also, for birds, you may use ovals, and not circles. Keep this in mind when deciding what species you are interested in. 7. Coloring. This had me really frustrated. With realistic colouring, it takes effort after a while to find new shades of gray and brown, and even make patterns with different animals. And, sometimes the other way around, when drawing tropical birds and wanting to do natural colours in a robin, and not the bright reds and greens. Use color palettes, and even color select from realistic references. It is not stealing, and it is just finding the colours that you really need for studies and fun practices! 8. In lighting, it makes your art very beautiful and unique! My sister showed me this: if you use an app that allows you to make the blending bucket paint full on the left, make a duplicate of your colored slide, and then opacity it to around 15. Also, if you can’t, the right also works, if you lock the layer and just blend it yourself. They both work!
I use Sketchbook, and I strive to help other struggling animal artists around me! :D Don't be scared to ask any other questions!
