Drawing Animals: From Anatomy to Rendering

Before we focus on drawing animals we need to cover basics about drawing. At its highest level, drawing is a combination of two skills:

1. Observation skills
2. Rotating 3D objects in your head (which can also be referred to as visualising 3D objects)

In this video I explain what these terms mean, and demonstrate with some examples.

Get your pencil and paper ready! This video will help you strengthen your observation skills. You don't need to practice this technique with the same picture I have used - it's just an example. If you're not feeling this exercise, feel free to try the other observation skill exercises first.

Another exercise to strengthen your observation skills. Again, if this one isn't your cup of tea, don't feel that you have to do the exercises in order.

This exercise is strange and enlightening the first time you try it. I highly recommend this exercise if you've never done it before!

This is the final exercise for honing your observation skills. All of these exercises are worth revisiting multiple times.

Now that we've covered observation skills, it's time to learn more about rotating and visualising 3D objects in your imagination. This video has an exercise that helps you do just that.

Another exercise for rotating and visualising 3D objects. This one's a bit tricky. I recommend that you do this exercise multiple times.

The big cats - lions, tigers, leopards and jaguars - are all closely related. You can draw all of them using the same basic rules. This lesson demonstrates how to draw their faces from front view.

Having learned their faces from front view, we now cover feline faces from side view. I decided to draw them side-by-side. It will help illustrate one or two of the principles discussed in "General Animal Anatomy & Proportions" lecture.

Time for something a bit more challenging! You've honed your observation skills on the front and side view lessons - now we apply those anatomical learnings to a '3D' model.

Same as the previous lecture, but focused on the smaller species of the cat family - this particular drawing is of a domestic cat.

You know how to draw the head. Now it's time to apply that to the full animal.

Small and large cats have very similar bodies. So rather than repeat most of the previous video I thought you get more from learning a different pose. This really is the archetypal cat pose.

Horses are quite difficult animals to draw. But they can be mastered with practice. Most of the techniques for drawing horses can also be applied to drawing zebras and donkeys. Here we cover the head from side view.

Here we work more on those observation skills, drawing the horse's head from front view.

You've done some observation work and 3D visualisation work on the head. Now it's time to learn the horse's body. Again, horses have quite difficult anatomy to master, so be patient.

This could be the most challenging lesson in the entire course. But it also teaches you a technique that you can apply to any animal - drawing the body in 3D perspective! Feel free to move on and come back later if this is too difficult for you.

Wolves can be fun to draw. Because they are the basis for all domestic dog breeds, you will be able to apply these rules when drawing dogs as well. I decided the best place to start was with the face from front view. Notice how that long snout can be portrayed from front view on a flat piece of paper. A valuable lesson.

Much like the previous animals, we now cover the wolf's face from side view. This will demand more from your observation skills than your 3D visualisation skills.

In this video we take the wolf head proportions we learned in the previous two lectures and apply them in a 3D context.

Despite the obvious similarities, there are some important differences between canine and feline bodies. We cover that and more in this lecture.

Cattle, cows, bulls, bovines... call them what you will. They may not be the most exciting animal to draw, but you can draw quite an impressive profile for these animals with surprisingly little effort.

Like the profile view, the cow's face from front view can be surprisingly rewarding and fun! Who said cows aren't charismatic animals?

The bovine body is an important exercise. If nothing else you will see how different they are from cats, horses and wolves. I recommend that you give this a go - it will help if you ever want to try more unusual animal bodies like elephants, rhinos and hippos.

Drawing an eagle's head from side view is easier than you may think. The techniques in this video will show you how master this majestic bird's appearance. If you struggle a bit with getting the curves right, just know that it's worth persisting. They're a lot of fun to draw!

It may not be as interesting or as cool as the eagle's head from side view, but this lecture will help you master the next lesson about drawing the eagle's head in 3D.

In the previous two videos you learned the proportions of the eagle's head from different views. In this video we combine that with skill of rotating 3D objects in your head. This video will develop your ability to visualise 3D objects.

Birds bodies change shape quite dramatically when they are in flight. In this video you will learn a bit more about bird anatomy, making it easier for you to draw a bird in flight. We will also apply some of what you learned about the wing in the "Bird Wing Anatomy" video.

Perched birds look very different from birds in flight. This video will explain how to draw an eagle in a perched position.

This is not an essential animal to learn. But it is easy to draw. This is a good video if you want to build your skills and confidence with a little less effort.

Similar to the previous lecture, this is an easy and fun little bird to draw.