General Discussion

@Abogado pretty much like @/Erujayy said, human anatomy, but with animal features. what animal is your friend's fursona? I'm pretty good with mammal anthros but not so much other species (just like every typical furry artist ever eek eek) I like to draw the legs as animalistic as I can, not straight. Not offense to people who do, it just looks a little off to me ^^' I found a trick for that (mammal legs anyway!) searching up suit tutorials (not my picture, found on google): [img]http://pre11.deviantart.net/547c/th/pre/i/2012/181/c/6/digitigrade_leg_foaming_study__in_fursuits__by_10kk-d55idgf.jpg[/img] It's a little tip sheet for building suit legs but the same stuff works for drawing them. It shows pretty well how the human legs relate the animal legs. I usually sketch human legs and then draw animal legs [i]over[/i] them if that makes sense. I give them human arms and torsos and necks, but animal heads (animal necks with all the fur fluff and stuff on look a little strange to me). Of course everybody draws them different ways, you could do something that's literally an animal on it's hind legs or a totally human body with an animal head, everybody does it differently. But this is how I do it! @Quadruped And your birds are so cool? I've been trying to figure out how bird anthros work for ages, they really shed light on things!

I love drawing cat anthros and the reason is probably my obsession with making Kajiit characters in Skyrim. I don't just stick cat heads on human bodies though like Kajiits. I've spent a lot of time studying the anatomy of legs of land mammals like cats and dogs for dragon-drawing purposes, and this technique translets well into drawing digitigrade anthros. The rest of the body I usually leave humanoid more or less, because drawing chests is difficult enough without adding the exaggerated ribcage of an animal into the mix. Hands tend to be a hybrid of human hands and paws, generally five fingers with pads if the pose allows them to be shown.

But to draw an athro with any kind of believability you need to know the anatomy of both the animal you're trying to humanize and human anatomy. Spend time practicing human anatomy first, then look at your chosen animal and try to edit the human figure till you have something you like. Generally you'll want an anthro head, and you can just stop there. Or you can go further. There's really no right or wrong way because anthros are whatever their artist wants them to be.

I would not recommend trying bird anthros though unless you're comfortable drawing angels or raptor wings. Bird wings are hard in general and editing a bird into a humanoid form gets even tricker. You either give them raptor wings with clawed hands on the top or put them on their back and give them arms. (There is the whole "wing feathers as fingers" thing -- see the owl mariachi band in the movie Rango -- but I find that rather ridiculous. It's fine if you're going for a cartoonist style but I'd stray away from it if you want realism.)

I draw a people and then slap an animal head, feet and tail on.

Apparently I don't do it right though because I make the proportions more human like when furries are supposed to have huge toony heads or something.


...That's the impression I get anyways.

@Quadruped

I'm just cruising through these forums and saw your birds. Dang, that white bird is good. I love its outfit, too.

Depends on if the character is a biped (two feet) or feral (four feet, like a normal animal). If it's a biped, everyone else here basically already gave great advice. if it's feral, use a normal animal of the fursona's species and use that as reference. I'm sure your partner would appreciate a realistic rendition of their fursona :)

You don't.

@Lamento
Hello!
sorry this is of topic but you said you know how to draw people and I was wondering if you could help, if it's a no that's fine.

Another thing to consider is whether or not the species is digitigrade or plantigrade. That will have a major impact on how they're drawn. I see people making the mistake quite often of drawing a plantigrade species as digitigrade.

I used to draw animals all the time (feral, that is) and it eventually evolved into anthros. So I kinda had to learn human anatomy rather than the other way around. What I do is mostly human body and an animal head, like so: [img]https://f2.toyhou.se/file/f2-toyhou-se/images/18080685_7IC8DhlJa01DJuf.png[/img] Some people do more animal like legs, and they add pawpads to the hands, but I tend to prefer not to do that, at least not for this particular character. I say just look at a LOT of art, and try to imitate traits you like! Good luck!

Well, I don't have much to say that hasn't already been said, but proportions are important! Anthro heads are bound to be bigger than human heads because of the different structure - beaks, muzzles, horns and all. As a result, they usually need a bigger body to support it! Keep proportions in mind and how you can change a human body structure to fit with the head of an animal!