Tips on drawing animals?

[Demy]

Next to backgrounds/landscapes this is probably one of my weakest areas.

Any tutorial links, advice, etc. would be appreciated.

[audeshattuck]

No specific tips, but below I found some good resources worth checking out. Just keep at it and you'll get the swing of it.

Reference photos with timed sessions to practice gesture drawing:

Animal Drawing Practice Tool For Artists of All Levels

Nice series of articles that breaks down anatomy and color:

How to Draw Animals - Envato Tuts+ Design & Illustration Tutorials

Good luck!

[tayo_rafferty]

I would spend some time just observing animals without pressuring yourself to draw them. Just observe them and try to take mental notes of how they move and use their limbs, where their eyes are placed. You'll start seeing similarities between different feline species, different bovine species, canine species etc. Just observe and then worry about drawing them later.

[sarrowsmith10]

Lots of references help for sure. I'd maybe look up specific references as you need them. When I first started my webcomic, drawing horses and backgrounds was definitely my weakness. I made a conscious effort to include more of what I was bad at, so that I would practice. I would often spend more time on the background than the characters. I'd try to pressure myself to not take short cuts and really work on those things. It took me almost 80 pages to really get the hang of drawing backgrounds and horses too.

This was a helpful tutorial for me though:

3D background Tutorial

[LoboSong_Hitaka5Ever]

Don't be afraid to reference photos that others have taken or ones that you take. I would also try to find 3D models of animals online that you can move around (here's an example: https://sketchfab.com/models/f3769a474a714ebbbaca0d97f9b0a5a0 ) When I started improving on my canine art, I visualized geometric shapes to get a feel for what I wanted and have had help from artist friends give me pointers (one friend works at a doggy daycare and has showed me photos for reference)

Hope that helps!

[Demy]

Yeah thanks for these. Always good to have more resources. All I had prior to this regarding animals was just one book. This will be useful.

[Demy]

Oh I haven't checked out that particular tutorial for yuumei yet. Guess I should do that now.

[zigmenthotep]

Look at skeletons, most vertebrates have the same basic body structure so looking at the skeleton is a good way to see how they're built and differ from humans. Basically apply the same tactics you use to draw humans.