Horse Drawing Notes

tips and general notes on how to draw horses and foals

I originally posted this tutorial on twitter and instagram, but am cross posting it here because this is just such an easier way to share this type of content.

Note:

anytime I call something "incorrect" in these notes, it is anatomically incorrect. If you are going for representational drawings of horses, it's something to note. If you want to draw stylized horses with legs that do whatever you want them to do, good on ya, have fun, this isn't directed at you so you can just ignore it.

Back legs:

When standing with any weight distributed to the back legs, the line from the knee to the hoof is smooth and straight with no sharp turn in. Also be careful of angles when bending the leg, the bones and muscles only go so far.

Front Legs

again those front lines tend to be straight and sturdy when standing straight. Think about how they're holding up the weight of the chest, neck and head. So they won't generally be bending and buckled in on a healthy horse.

Head

the biggest mistakes I see with heads is drawing the eyes forward on the head like a dog, or making the nose too long or too short. Here are some different views of a standard horse head followed by some errors I see with drawing them. Note that there are breed differences that negate some of these. For instance Arabians are often bred to have a sloped stop. But if you're just looking to draw a quarter horse or warmblood, or really most "standard" breeds, these apply. Once you've got these down, drawing unique head shapes like those of a draft or an Arabian will be a lot easier.

Proportions and conformation

conformation is a tricky subject, as it's the standard by which horses are measured for sport and show. Not all horses necessarily conform to good conformation. However, it makes it reeeeally easy to measure and draw them. So if you can use these as basic guides, and get the skeleton down using these rules, you can then break them as you see fit.

Poses

Some standard poses and views with tips on how to approach them

Foals

Gangly and goopy and weird with legs that are too long, heads that are too big and bones that don't make sense. They are perfect and terrible in every way. Just think: legs too long, head too big, body feels too short and you'll be golden. For real though one of the easiest way I think of it is they don't have a lot of muscle mass yet. So their head feels too big because their neck isn't built up yet. and their legs feel funny looking and long because there's a mass of muscle that forms around the flank area that is very obviously missing on them. And their bodies are squat because they're weird little monsters who fear no god nor man.