Steve Worthington

Draw Dogs (or Anything) With or Without Reference

Oh these five dogs in the garden are awesome!

Hey Steve! I'm now halfway through the course and it feels amazing! I've added more sketches, and some portraits I made using references. I am struggling with the muscles and the legs and hesitate to draw the same dogs from different views, do you have any advice for me?

Think of the portrait drawings and the figuring stuff out drawings as different projects with different goals. It is fun to draw directly from reference to produce drawings with nice fur texture and all that sort of thing. I did a LOT of that when I was younger particularly. Later, when I wanted to draw things from any angle I realized I would have to give up on the idea of making pretty drawings as I struggled with all the construction and anatomy. That was my new goal, and ugly drawings are a part of the process (I wish I had realized that earlier, but better late than never). Once you have a structurally sound framework of straight lines that represents the bone structure and orientation of the main volumes, you can figure out where the muscles start and end. Muscles have a habit of changing their shapes though. Depending on a given movement or pose, different muscles may be more noticeable and others seem to disappear. Anatomy takes time to learn and comprehend, so take your time and always be on the lookout for when certain muscles are more noticeable when you see video or photos of dogs doing things (especially short haired dogs). It is very important to think of mass and volume when drawing muscles. Try to get a feeling for how much thicker they get when shortened, and thinner and flatter when stretched out for example. I can see you are having fun and making great progress, which makes me very happy!

Hi steve! I am loving your class, i took a while off to pratice perspective like you suggested. It has helped immensely! i have added a few more sketches of the skelton and basic muscle structure. :)

Hello Hrishikesh Rao, I can see you are really getting into tackling these basic shapes around the parts of a dog, well done! And your dogs are looking great. I can see you are carefully plotting points that represent the corners of boxes and and other points that represent the joints of a dog. One thing it is useful to do in order to really embed drawing 3 dimensional shapes into your mind, is get some small boxes, put them on a table at different angles and draw them as a group. It makes drawing dogs (and everything else as well) easier the better you get at understanding those corners and edges. I am looking forward to seeing what you post next!

Hey, wow, this is terrific! I can see you are constructing with the boxes and getting a good feeling for those dogs, and clearly enjoying yourself! Keep up the good work!

4 more pages, I love it! Those portraits are marvelous! So are you finding the boxes helpful in keeping your forms from going wonky? You are certainly diligent in sketching them in. This is fun for me to see, and clearly you are having fun making them.

Thanks so much, Steve! I am now looking at references and reconstructing the dogs, soon I hope I will be able to construct the same dogs from different angles. I am still struggling with the muscles around the legs though!

I'm really enjoying seeing what you're doing and how well you're doing too. Anatomy is a bit of a huge subject to tackle and get properly comfortable with. There's the muscles and what they do from a mechanical viewpoint (understanding that is very helpful when it comes to drawing them) plus their shapes are complicated and change when they are flexed vs relaxed. Add to that the fact that often several muscles lay over each other and some show in certain actions, and then seem to disappear as others become evident in other poses or actions and you start to get a sense of the size of the subject! It's a mix of understanding function, recognizing forms (and being comfortable drawing them), observation and memory. So don't panic when you find it difficult, because it is! Keep looking at pictures of dogs and watch video or actual dogs around you carefully and you will start to recognize certain things that repeat and grab your attention. Like when certain muscles in the back legs bulge and when they don't (assuming a short haired muscular looking dog). I've always enjoyed getting into the anatomical aspect of things so I don't mind spending time on trying to figure out and remember as much as I can, which is never as much as I'd like, but that's probably a pretty universal feeling!<div>That group of dogs is looking good. The one furthest away looks a bit like a happy hyena!</div>

<img style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" src="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/697bf5eb.jpg" alt="DOGS! - image 1 - student project" srcset="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=600,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/697bf5eb.jpg 600w, https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/697bf5eb.jpg 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 600px, 100vw" loading="lazy"><img style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" src="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/b6e05925.jpg" alt="DOGS! - image 2 - student project" srcset="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=600,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/b6e05925.jpg 600w, https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/b6e05925.jpg 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 600px, 100vw" loading="lazy"> <img style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" src="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/6e5b819f.jpg" alt="DOGS! - image 3 - student project" srcset="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=600,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/6e5b819f.jpg 600w, https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/6e5b819f.jpg 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 600px, 100vw" loading="lazy"><img src="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/b57b7f9a.jpg" alt="DOGS! - image 4 - student project" srcset="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=600,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/b57b7f9a.jpg 600w, https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/b57b7f9a.jpg 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 600px, 100vw" loading="lazy"><img style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" src="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/f48139fc.jpg" alt="DOGS! - image 5 - student project" srcset="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=600,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/f48139fc.jpg 600w, https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/f48139fc.jpg 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 600px, 100vw" loading="lazy"><img style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" src="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/bdeb4812.jpg" alt="DOGS! - image 6 - student project" srcset="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=600,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/bdeb4812.jpg 600w, https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/bdeb4812.jpg 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 600px, 100vw" loading="lazy"><img style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" src="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/27a1ae47.jpg" alt="DOGS! - image 7 - student project" srcset="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=600,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/27a1ae47.jpg 600w, https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/27a1ae47.jpg 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 600px, 100vw" loading="lazy"><img style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" src="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/39ffd30d.jpg" alt="DOGS! - image 8 - student project" srcset="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=600,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/39ffd30d.jpg 600w, https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/39ffd30d.jpg 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 600px, 100vw" loading="lazy"><img style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" src="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/96b46024.jpg" alt="DOGS! - image 9 - student project" srcset="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=600,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/96b46024.jpg 600w, https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/96b46024.jpg 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 600px, 100vw" loading="lazy"><img style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" src="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/77dc320c.jpg" alt="DOGS! - image 10 - student project" srcset="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=600,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/77dc320c.jpg 600w, https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/77dc320c.jpg 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 600px, 100vw" loading="lazy"><img style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" src="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/fe79fb16.jpg" alt="DOGS! - image 11 - student project" srcset="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=600,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/fe79fb16.jpg 600w, https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/fe79fb16.jpg 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 600px, 100vw" loading="lazy">I'm going to be putting up screenshots of all my pratice sketched here, because you're a great instructor and I want people to know how much progress I'm making and how much fun I'm having :D<img style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" src="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/c3abab59.jpg" alt="DOGS! - image 12 - student project" srcset="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=600,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/c3abab59.jpg 600w, https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/be3a4299c8098e95e4d2e9dd78e217c5/c3abab59.jpg 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 600px, 100vw" loading="lazy">

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