Woah. I already understand that anatomy is important for drawing humans and animals. Now I see how funny looking pictures are without anatomy. The bad horse picture is funny. At least the limbs are bending in the right direction. The improved picture of the horse looks a lot better. Having good anatomy helps so much. This shouldn't just apply to drawing regular horses. It also helps with drawing fantasy horses like unicorns and pegasi. Even super stylized cutesy ponies can benefit from good anatomy. Horses are very unique animals. Of all animals they are the most specialized runners. The other condenders would be thier closest relatives, donkeys and zebras. Cheetas are famous for being the fastest runners. However they can still use their legs for scratching and clawing as well as running. Horses can't do that. They can kick, but the impact is blunt. Horses are highly adapted for running. They are prey animals in a steppe environment, and they run to defend against predators. This is reflected in the anatomy. The muscles and joints are concentrated in the body as opposed to the feet. It reduces torque making leg movement easier. So horses have a very unique anatomy. The basics are comparable to other animals, but there are differences. Horses and their closest relatives are the only ones with only one toe on each foot. It is modified to a hoof. Having only one toe shows how specialized horses are. Reducing toes also reduce torque. There are other other hoofed mammals, but they have two toes in their hoof. This forms a cloven hoof. This includes animals like camels, pigs, giraffes, deer, sheep, antelope and cattle. It takes effort to learn horse anatomy, but it is well worth it. At first, I was wierded out by the way that all of the horse's limbs bend backward, when compared to a human. Then I eventually get used to it. Horses are tricky and even difficult at times. So it is a good topic to cover. The one thing that makes anatomy easier is comparing animals. There is only one system the artist needs to learn. It will work on all vertebrates, except for fish. It is so much easier that learning multiple systems. The trick is that there are modifications to the basic structure to form different kinds of animals. There are variation on that structure that allow for different kinds of movement. Horses are good at running. Birds are good at flying. Seals are good at swimming. Frogs are good at hopping. Monkeys are good at climbing. Humans are good at walking on two feet and manipulating tools. Despite the differences, they all share the same basic structure within. That is cool that you mention dragons. Dragon anatomy can be really tricky and really fun. It isn't really based on a specific creature, so that gives the way to a lot of experimentation. I think that dragons look more like dinosaurs and pterosaurs than any other real creature. So I like to use dinosaur anatomy as a base for dragons. I like the modern depictions of dinosaurs. These dinosaurs are stiffer, and they have an awesome grace to them. I have seen some old depiction of dinosaurs, and they look so weird. They are all limp and droopy. The bipedal ones have a kangaroo posture. The sauropods are aquatic for some strange reason. The iguanidon is the first dinosaur ever to be discovered by scientists. I am used to modern depiction. It is a graceful bipedal dinosaur with spikes for thumbs. It could crawl around on all fours. The first depictions of iguanadons are especially bizarre. It almost looks like something out of a sci fi movie. Watch out for the reptilian aliens. I am used to the popular depictions of dragons. The anatomy is droopy like the old dinosaur depictions. I like to modernize dragons by using dinosaur anatomy. The effect is really cool. It is my own spin on it. If I had to pick one kind of dinosaur to go off of, it would be sauropod. Sauropods really look like dragons. They are good for the base, and I can add other dinosaur parts to form a dragon. Like horses, sauropods have a tricky anatomy, but they are well worth the study. The bigger bulkier dinosaurs have a unique kind of legs. It is something that I would describe as "digitigrade pillars". Sauropods are distinguished from other dinosaurs by their long necks and long tails. They also have a big bulky body and pillar-like legs. They are usually quadrupedal. Sauropods live on land, and they can support thier bodies fine. They are a giant size, even by dinosaur standards. Even in Land Before Time, sauropods are called long-necks, which refers to their most distinctive feature. Dragons often have long necks. There are exceptions, but the neck really adds to the dargon-ness. So a sauropod provides a good base for a dragon, especially for a quadrupedal one. Then I can add on other features like claws and wings. I have been working on a character design for a dragon. Then I thought of adding snake in there. I like how a more snaky appearance fits with the character. This is easy to incorporate. Snake refers to a specific group of reptiles, but there are a wide variety of animals that are similar. Something with a long skinny neck is snaky. Having a long skinny tail or even a long skinny body is very snaky. I recently figured out that my dragon design actually resembles a certain species. It is the diplodicous. This is a species of sauropod, and it is really really snaky. Experimenting with anatomy is a lot of fun.
Animal Anatomy is available for download if you google it from vetbooks.ir. Thanks Austin in your first minutes I’ve finally seen the major difference in horses. How their “shoulder joint” is deep inside their torso unlike humans. Cheers !
0Luna123 brachiocephalic* (brachycephalic is more accurate because brachiocephalic refers to the artery), also, just make the face shorter, like a human
