#animal reference

[art-tnt]

[barghestblack]

Reviving my animal ear reference I made last year.

Studying reference can really upgrade your artwork and character designs. Sketch over ref photos to break down those shapes and understand the differences between breeds and species. :)

[purple-pigeon-art]

This might just be a nitpicky thing but i see a lot of pigeons drawn with budgie noses. They dont have budgie noses! They look so weird to me drawn with their nostrils on top of the cere (white part of the nose)

Their nostrils are right above their mouths under the little fold. I always recommend looking at references for the species that youre drawing. Personally I doodle without a reference pretty often and i have a decent idea of what a pigeon looks like in my minds eye but ill always do better with references. I usually just look up pigeons on google and leave the image search results open while i draw.

Pictured are Tarot and Cloud, my homing pigeons.

[simple-persica]

I got sick and tired of not knowing how to draw animals so...I sat myself down and actually did something about it

[ninesartblog]

Russel Jack

Russel Jack, a kickboxing hare OC

Posted using PostyBirb

[oliviersilven]

SHARK MAN. Character concept with animal reference. Sketch+Ipad+Procreate. Blog: http://oliviersilven.blogspot.com/2023/12/shark-man.html TUMBLR: http://oliviersilven.tumblr.com/ All Artwork Copyright Olivier SILVEN.

[reneeworks]

whoever made this site for animal references, I want to kiss you sloppy style

[telleroftime]

Does anyone know where to find high quality references of animals? Close ups and all?

I'm sure there's some archive somewhere but I can't seem to find it, however I need to see what pigeon feet look like close up. For more context, I'm redesigning one of my OCs and I'm playing around with the idea of bird-like hands. That would mean they vary between species but since I can't get any good close ups of bird feet it's proving difficult.

Of course corvids are easy to find but things like pigeons? Not so much.

[art-tnt]

Variations in feline mouth structures for reference

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

Pssst... something new is coming...

...this weekend!

Free, non-AI animal art references.

[sopuu]

animation of jimmy getting owned in real life

bonus gif of him celebrating i made for funsies :] oh the oblivious bliss...

[arabellameyer]

@archimedes-archives @pawblins

@croggg @itsmossball @idrawgaystffs

Immediately thought if you five

Stock associate got distracted

[iwillbeconeadeer]

[maligatorthealligator]

Guys

GUYS

I can't even, I just learned about the Photo Ark which has more than FIFTEEN THOUSAND species captured in it!! It's so cool! And the photos are STUNNING 😍

[canisalbus]

✦ Fashionably late ✦

[dracl-dragon]

:D

The Exotic Animal Photo Reference Repository is live!

You can find it at: https://www.animal-photo-references.com!

Here's how this repository works: all photos were taken by me, a human, at zoos, aquariums, sanctuaries, and other facilities with animals in human care. There is no AI involved in the photo editing or creation and there never will be. Right now there's 56 species on the site; my catalog has over 300 and I will be uploading the rest of them as fast as I can.

Artists creating derivative or transformative works (without AI) have blanket permission to use these references. Yes, even for work you're going to sell.

All other usage/reproduction requires permission, but assume I'm friendly and please do ask! That's educators, researchers, the media, people who need images for a school presentation, etc. This is just to retain copyright/control in case they're scraped/reused unethically - it doesn't meant I don't want folk to have access! So please do reach out via the contact form on the repository website, I don't bite and I'm most likely going to say yes.

Please don't repost the repository photos to your own blogs: I've created @animalphotorefs as a dedicated blog to share photos from the site, and of course I'll reblog a lot of it here! That again just helps with retaining copyright and sourcing of the images. If you really want to repost some for a specific purpose, please just ask me first!

Also, folks, this project has no funding. It's just me and my camera.

There will never be a paywall on the site - I believe resources like this absolutely must be free for everyone to access. So please, please, please support the repository if you use it. Want sneak peeks at photos, cute videos I take, or to help choose what I photograph and what gets posted first? You can do that through Patreon (and there's a free trial on the most interactive tier!) If you'd like to just drop a tip, I've also set up a Ko-Fi.

I can't wait to hear what everyone thinks of the repository.

To whet your thirst for cute photos, here's an Indian rhinoceros contemplating a goose.