#i hope this isn't like. presumptive of me asdfghjk

[falconfate]

I’d definitely second the anatomy thing—I actually had to study equine skeletal and muscular systems for a certificate program a few years ago, and my skill at drawing horses improved drastically after that. My best advice is to not just look up diagrams of these things, but actually investigate how the parts move and affect each other within the whole.

Just off the top of my head, an example of “how muscle work” that really helped my drawing skill has to do with the muscles around the shoulder: specifically the trapezius muscles and the brachiocephalicus muscles, which I've roughly circled on this image taken from Classic Equine (the trapezius is the big triangle covering the withers and base of the neck, the brachiocephalicus is the upper of the long skinny muscles connecting the head to in front of the elbow)

Understanding the trapezius is really useful for being able to draw that complicated join between neck, withers, and back; the trapezius really makes it quite a smooth transition, which is hard to visualize if your reference is just a picture or a skeletal diagram. Notice especially how it reaches down to join with the deltoids, covering the scapula (shoulder blade) in a sturdy layer of tissues. This is the top front quarter of that front circle in your guidelines, and is the reason a circle even works as a guideline.

Meanwhile, the function and movement of the brachiocephalicus is really important to understanding a horse's posture in movement--if you've read or watched Black Beauty, you may remember that pulling loads in high traces (which lifts a horse's head "fashionably" high) was difficult and even painful, and the brachiocephalicus is why: if a horse's head is held high, it pulls that long, skinny muscle taught, a bit like a strung bow, and actually blocks the horse's front legs from swinging forward; this shortens the horse's stride, and severely impairs the power they can put into their gait. On the other hand, if a horse is allowed to carry his head near the height of his withers, that loosens the "bowstring," and allows greater freedom of movement for the front end, which in turn allows the hind end to reach forward under the horse's belly and stretch out his topline--which is the looked-for horse posture in dressage, because it makes it easier for the horse to move with power.

Having an understanding not only of what the muscles are, but how they interact with each other and affect the horse's posture, motion, and ability, is in my opinion an incredibly important factor in learning to "accurately" draw horses--and of course that applies to anything with a muscular system! It took me a long time to figure out that when artists and art teachers told me to "study anatomy," they didn't mean that I should be able to recite a laundry list of Latin, they meant that I needed to understand conceptually what the muscles and bones do.

sorry im goin crazy bc im tryin to make a centaur but i cant draww horses for shit do you havve any tips or should i just vvomit onto the page and showw it off to you

Quick guide on how I draw horses!

It's just an endless process of drawing loose guidelines and refining those lines, then drawing my guidelines etc. until it looks like a horse.

My best advice is the use a reference photo until you get comfortable with horse anatomy. References are your friend!!

[horsefigureoftheday]

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#i hope this isn't like. presumptive of me asdfghjk#but i love horses and i love drawing horses and i truly deeply understand the frustration of drawing horses#ESPECIALLY when you love them but just can't seem to 'get it right'#the certificate program i learned this in had nothing at all to do with art#basically it was riding and barn management and some teaching/training and based heavily on british cavalry practices#so we were learning the anatomy and then actually talking in the saddle about what that anatomy was doing#it was hard but also so much fun and i miss it so much#at any rate shortly after i learned this stuff i was just like. doodling a horse and then realized 'hang on a minute this looks too good'#and that's when i realized what 'study anatomy' actually meant lmao

sorry im goin crazy bc im tryin to make a centaur but i cant draww horses for shit do you havve any tips or should i just vvomit onto the page and showw it off to you

Quick guide on how I draw horses!

It's just an endless process of drawing loose guidelines and refining those lines, then drawing my guidelines etc. until it looks like a horse.

My best advice is the use a reference photo until you get comfortable with horse anatomy. References are your friend!!