Steve Worthington

Draw Dogs (or Anything) With or Without Reference

Hi Steve, these drawings are lovely. Do you have any books you can recommend to enhance our knowledge about drawing dogs? I'm specifically interested in puppies but do understand that I probably need to learn the full size dogs first before squashing the proportions down for pups. Thanks!

Hi Sharif, I've done storyboards of nothing but puppies. Step one is figure out the proportions (overall proportion for an enclosing box). How big is the head? From a side view is the box long, tall, square, or what? Break the head down and figure out where the eyes and nose go relative the head size. How big are the ears? A puppy might be short bodied and long legged at a certain age, with a bigger forehead/cranium relative to the short snout. Big paws. If you are doing puppies of a certain breed (I often had to do labs) find some reference of them from angles that allow you to figure out the proportions (side/front/overhead are good) and then have at it! I don't know any dog specific books but animal anatomy books are useful. 
Eliot Goldfinger, Ernest Thompson Seton, and Muybridge's amazing book of animals in motion are all terrific.

Wow, wow, wow! Just began this course and hoping to be able to draw like this in the future!

Dog drawings. The top left in each set of 3 drawings is drawn from reference, and the other two drawings are re-constructions of the same but imagined from new viewpoints. I drew in a skateboard to help figure out the back feet positions of one dog!
<img style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" src="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/389f53677524071c5f4dd11bd705bec9/ae1c7137.jpg" alt="Dogs x3 (1 using reference, the other 2 figured out) - image 1 - student project" srcset="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=600,format=auto/uploads/project/389f53677524071c5f4dd11bd705bec9/ae1c7137.jpg 600w, https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/389f53677524071c5f4dd11bd705bec9/ae1c7137.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/389f53677524071c5f4dd11bd705bec9/3a4cf0f4.jpg" alt="Dogs x3 (1 using reference, the other 2 figured out) - image 2 - student project" srcset="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=600,format=auto/uploads/project/389f53677524071c5f4dd11bd705bec9/3a4cf0f4.jpg 600w, https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/389f53677524071c5f4dd11bd705bec9/3a4cf0f4.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/389f53677524071c5f4dd11bd705bec9/6864b61e.jpg" alt="Dogs x3 (1 using reference, the other 2 figured out) - image 3 - student project" srcset="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=600,format=auto/uploads/project/389f53677524071c5f4dd11bd705bec9/6864b61e.jpg 600w, https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/389f53677524071c5f4dd11bd705bec9/6864b61e.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/389f53677524071c5f4dd11bd705bec9/c56bcbdd.jpg" alt="Dogs x3 (1 using reference, the other 2 figured out) - image 4 - student project" srcset="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=600,format=auto/uploads/project/389f53677524071c5f4dd11bd705bec9/c56bcbdd.jpg 600w, https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/389f53677524071c5f4dd11bd705bec9/c56bcbdd.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/389f53677524071c5f4dd11bd705bec9/d0ce8fe9.jpg" alt="Dogs x3 (1 using reference, the other 2 figured out) - image 5 - student project" srcset="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=600,format=auto/uploads/project/389f53677524071c5f4dd11bd705bec9/d0ce8fe9.jpg 600w, https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/389f53677524071c5f4dd11bd705bec9/d0ce8fe9.jpg 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 600px, 100vw" loading="lazy">

Dogs x3 (1 using reference, the other 2 figured out)

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