How did you learn to draw ponies?

cherriesjubilee

cherriesjubilee

Being upper class doesn't make you classy!
Joined
Nov 8, 2008
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449
Hello,

Lately I have been wanting to be able to draw ponies, but I dont know where to start or what to do.
Since Im not really the best drawer I thought maybe if I got some ideas of how you learnt.
Did you go on the net and look up how to draw them? Did you sketch what your ponies look like on paper? Or do you just natrually draw?
Thats what I would like to know :)

Thank you
 
Practice practice practice practice! Find someone whose work you like-- be it G1 cartoons, Faust's new work, or an artist on the board. Look at it, and you want to try to emulate what you like about the style. Do you like your ponies short and stubby? Or tall and thin? Do you like traditional eyes, anime eyes, or something in between? Finding out what you like it other's art should help you know what you want in your own.

From there, what you should do is approach it as you would approach anything. Break your subject into a series of lines and shapes. Usually a circle and rectangle or circle for a nose, two circles make the body, and then the legs are lines, or blobs, depending on how you want... make sure to look at everything as SHAPES! It's possible to sketch your own ponies, but it depends if you want the cartoony look, or something more realistic. I'm assuming you want the former, like adoptables usually are.

Here's a tutorial that references real ponies for a tutorial, and makes a flat, 2-d image of the pony.

My Little Pony Arena » Pony Drawing Tutorial

Ponies are... much like anything, you need to look at the shapes and how the figure moves to learn how to draw it. and practice practice practice!
 
Right now I am learning to draw ponies. I've drawn all my life but never tackled horses because I always made them look so NOT like a horse. Recently I've come up with my own way of drawing them through just sketching pages and pages of them (even when I think they look terrible). Eventually something pony-like appeared! I realized that my brain could not wrap about making a cute stubby pony face without some guidence so I draw two boxes to form my ponies face and then erase the boxes afterward. I'll post them here later maybe :)
 
MidnightChyld said:
Right now I am learning to draw ponies. I've drawn all my life but never tackled horses because I always made them look so NOT like a horse. Recently I've come up with my own way of drawing them through just sketching pages and pages of them (even when I think they look terrible). Eventually something pony-like appeared! I realized that my brain could not wrap about making a cute stubby pony face without some guidence so I draw two boxes to form my ponies face and then erase the boxes afterward. I'll post them here later maybe :)
Click to expand...

Haha, yeah, right now my pony i'm drawing is looking ok, something about it just dosent look right. Im gonna fix it up a bit.
I'm going to start pony sketching more and maybe I will find my special technique to drawing a pony :)
 
I have talent and that's all. I mean, if you want to draw ponies on paper it's easy only if you have talent otherwise you can't learn. It's totally another thing on the computer...took me long to learn.
 
well for me, i started with the 3-9 style and just tried to mimic the box art. i've always been pretty good at what i refer to as "sight drawing", which is mimicing a referance image, usually enlarging it. i used to redraw my pokemon card pictures on full sized pieces of paper that way. but i digress...

for years i was also a wolfy antro artist before i started doing cartoon/manga people, so once i started figureing out how the ponys worked, i just started doing the similar way i'd draw my wolves shape and "skeleton" wise. draw the head shapes, a guide line for where the back would go, then the leg guides. i'd also looked up other how-to tutorials and saw how others formed their basic body structure shapes and thar really helped to. and since then, it's just evolved more into my own drawing tricks, making it more my style that's loosely based on the mlp art.

now with te FiM style, i'm trying to figure out how to draw that too. again, it's just take screen caps and referance them, drawing them bigger, figureing out how the bunch of crcles do together to make the basic shape, then adding the real lines over the guide lines. once you undersand how the shapes are made, it gets really easy.

as to the drawing straght on the computer, i can't help you thre. i suck at drawing with a mouse, and i can't use a tablet. but i have been able yo draw pony bodys with the pen tool in PS onto heads i'd drawn on paper and scanned in. again, it's just visualizing the shape structures and building it up.

i hope some of that helps, and makes sense ^^; good luck with your drawing!
:reaper: Kat :reaper:
 
for freehand drawing I use the good ol' circles method (art class memories anyone?) to get perspectives right on head/body/limb proportions etc. and yeah, it also helps if you are starting out and "copying" a style to actually trace over an image and then personalize it from there = until you get more comfortable just sight/mimic-ing what you see to then transfer it to paper.


I know when I was younger I had a series of books "how to draw..." by a Ray somebody/maybe? (sorry author's name completely lost ...) with his amazing pencil sketches for buildings, animals, people, etc. and I would practice alot with that (he used circle/square/shape blocking method and then detail fil-in step by step stuff) so depending on your library, or online capability (as links above give ya) there are plenty of how to's out there = but yeah = practice definitely strengthens your talent - even if it's not alot to begin with

because I take exception to drawing being pure talent - it's also drive and willingness to just DO that completes and defines a successful artist = just like an athlete you can have god-given ability but if you are not out on the field practicing your body will not perform over time. Same goes with drawing = and I definitely think classes taught by an artist whether through a school or community center or wherever can definitely help you see where to focus and hone your skills = laying a good foundation for development of your own critical eye later

Oh, and don't be afraid to get a doodle pad to just "doodle" when the fancy to draw hits/time allows and just have that with you wherever you go

all the best as you start drawing all things equine :)



MM
 
I'll quote Emb on practice, practice, practice. I am literally the least artistically inclined person on the entire planet, I couldn't draw my way out of a paper bag but I can draw a decent pony because I've been doing it nonstop for 19 years. I started with mimicing actual ponies but the drawings started turning out much better when I started mimicing the style of the G1 books I had. I would sit and draw this pony over and over and over again (to be honest, I can only draw a pony facing left...)

Drawing is easy if you're naturally inclined but it doesn't mean the rest of us are hopeless. Even if you think your drawings suck just keep doing them and try and figure out what you don't like about yours and what makes them different from the art you're doing. I was drawing the hair really stupidly for like 5 years until I looked in the book and realized how they did it, it totally took me drawings to a new level and made them semi-decent.

Good luck!
 
I agree, sometimes just whipping out some lined paper and doodling with no pressure to come up with any finished product is how I come up with my best drawings. I have a notebook with lined paper and it's actually THAT book that has the best drawings in it--I then trace them over into my blank sketch book. I think too, one can become discouraged with their own art easily. So just remember those people who can draw great, probably have been doing it since they were children, and over time thier art improved just like everyone else.
 
oooo!! so much facts!! thank you all so much!!
I am now drawing more and using all of your information!!
Once again, Thank you every single one of you!!!! :)
 
What can we say? You're welcome, dude! :blush:
 
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