Here’s a rough tutorial (I think) on how I sketch animals :3
(I hope it’s somewhat helpful)
First, I start with a reference
In this case it’s a cat (which I find especially fun! They’re rather bendy and leave more room for errors as opposed to something that’s more … static? I don’t know the right word at the moment, sorry, but they’re great to start out with!)
Next, I put down lines that help with getting the general shape in place
I put down the head first and in this case, I follow the line of the back (sometimes I put down another shape to get the volume of the body down, but here I was able to achieve the volume by following the curves) (honestly just talking about the line of action here, I think)
Then I add the other curves (and roughly ignore whatever might be behind the tail)
And also the line for the front leg!
After that, I start with the rougher details
So I’m adding the snoot, the ears, the eyes (and for cats that circle thingy where the whiskers are, I think it looks cute but it also helps a bit, I think)
I eyeball it for animals usually (aside from adding guidelines if the head is tilted)
And I tend to add slightly humanized expressions! Which isn’t always the plan but I like it either way :3
And then I add some more rough details
In this case fur, but it can also be extra lines to show that there’s extra volume there, for example!
But honestly, the main thing is shapes!
Everything can be boiled down to shapes, so it makes sense to find those first (I use a lot of circles, ovals, blob shapes to start with, but any shape can be used. Though I guess it just kinda depends)
I hope this is at least a little helpful, I’m not that good at explaining things :'>
And I’m mainly practicing here too, I’ve gotten back into art just at the end of 2024, so I haven’t been at it for that long
I'm gonna reblog this with another example, just give me a moment ^^
