Hindsight

As part of my practice drawing horses and painting digitally, I did this Celtic gladiator piece:

In my quest to improve my horse drawings, I thought it might be a good idea to try a little animation. This is pretty rough, and it’s basically just a copy from Eadweard Muybridge‘s Animals in Motion, but it made me practice drawing the proportion and structure of the horse quickly, and it was also a chance to play with Photoshop’s animation capabilities. Did you know Photoshop has animation capabilities? I just discovered this a few weeks ago, and I really like the possibilities for animating with painterly tools (of the sort you won’t find in Flash).

I’m trying to work on some of my weaknesses, one of which is drawing horses. I can draw them fine from reference, but it’s not always easy to find the correct pose and angle, and the mental model I have of their anatomical structure isn’t very good. Here are a few practice studies, and I’ll probably be doing more in the coming weeks.