Well, it's a little hard to explain without actually "showing" you. But I'll give it a shot. This is going to be a long message.

One thing I should say is that you shouldn't be afraid to use a photograph for a reference. The drawings in my gallery are mostly studies and practices for future uses. Now I can create a horse at any angle I imagine, no matter what photo I use for a reference. For example, I can use a photograph of a horse that is at a basic side pose and standing still. But I draw the horse at a 3/4 angle(meaning it's partially facing you) and make him stand on it's hind legs. But the photo helps me with muscle and light. Using plastic horse models is always a good idea too.

Before I get into technique, I'm going to tell you a few major DON'T rules when shading and coloring. It is very important that you draw in sections, meaning, don't start shading the whole horse at once, so that you don't smudge the paper, or blacken up the side of your hand, I've done that so many times. To avoid this you need to draw from left to right if you are right handed, or right to left if you are left handed. If you do start shading the whole horse first instead of sections, the side of your hand will rub against the already shaded parts and will start smudging what you have already shaded and will also make your hand very dirty. Also, there is a chance that the oil in your skin may rub onto the paper, making anything on that oily spot impossible to erase. I know that sometimes it is pretty much necessary to shade all the dark parts of the horse first, especially with colored pencil and pastel, so another way to avoid oily smudges and such is to put a piece of paper underneath your wrist so that it wont rub on the paper you are drawing on. Black construction paper works really well for this. However, doing this can still smear the pencil underneath if the protection paper rubs against it, so if you use this method then make sure that the protection paper does not move around while your hand is resting on it. Another big NO is to be careful not to erase too much. This is because if you start erasing the pencil a lot then the paper will start to come up with it and will begin to lose it's smoothness and will make the pencil look rough. There is no sure way to avoid this since drawing can be frustrating sometimes. The only advice I have for this is that you draw outlines very lightly, so that it will all but disappear after you are done shading.

As far as technique goes, it varies depending on what color the horse is. If it's a dark horse like the one you faved the other day, then what you should do is shade in the darkest parts first with a dark pencil. (by the way, if you don't understand what I mean by the types of pencils I'm listing then look on the last paragraph in this message.) I usually use a 6B or 7B for black horses, but you can go as light as a 2B pencil. However, if you use a 2B then you'll be doing a lot of hard pressing, and that might press in the paper. Then you take a light pencil, I usually use an H pencil but anywhere from HB to 3H will work well, and start drawing on top of the dark spots to make it look smooth. Start stroking out from the dark spots into the lighter spots. Some of the graphite from the dark pencil will be carried by the light pencil and will make very smooth gray tones. Make sure that the pencil is light enough at the spot where the highlight will be. After you have shaded the muscle, go back with an eraser, a kneaded eraser works the best, and swiftly "flick" away at the lightest spots, which will give it a shiny highlight.

When it comes to light colored horses, its a little easier as far as shading goes, but you have to be careful not to put too much pencil on it. This time for the darkest parts, use a light pencil like an HB or H. If the horse is dappled with dark gray spots on some parts of it's body then you may have to use a variety of dark's and light's to make it look real. At this point its pretty much rinse and repeat with the dark pencils, except with light pencils. There is also a very useful tool called a blending stump, if you haven't heard of it. They are sometimes called "tortillions"...I think that's how you spell it. If you don't know what it is then it's basically a tightly rolled piece of paper that is shaped like a pencil. This tool is used to purposefully smudge the pencil. This sort of blends the pencil into the paper, making it look soft and smooth. This is great when used on light colored things because you can take the dark spots and sort of smooth them out. But don't think of this tool as a way to get around using the pencils when shading because it does not always work the way you want. Sometimes it can make the shading look too soft and then the muscle won't look solid. But if you have a light colored horse then this tool is good for branching out the shadows a little. You can get the same effect from using a piece of tissue paper, but the downside to that is that the tissue paper does not have that stiff, pointed edge that is much easier to control.

I'm going to try and explain where I used these techniques on this drawing [link] (This pic doesn't look nearly as good a it does in person. I dont have a scanner so I have to use a digital camera and upload the pic) First I have to say that I did draw this sketch in sections. I drew the tail first, then the flanks, then the raised hind leg, then the first half of the stomach, then the other hind leg, then the rest of the stomach, then the shoulders, then the grounded front leg, then the neck and mane, then the head, then the chest, and then the last leg.

I used the dark muscle method in the dark parts of the flanks, in the dark parts of the legs, stomach, and face. I used the light muscle method in the shoulders, the light parts of the stomach, the feet, and the light parts in the flanks. I used a blending stump to make some of the gray tones in the face and to make the very light gray tones around the shiny parts on the stomach and shoulders. I also used the stump to blur the raised feet so that they look like they are moving.

Back to what I was saying about the pencils, there are a variety of pencils named to represent their tone. It ranges from 9B, which is the darkest to 9H which is the lightest. The classic #2 pencil is actually an HB pencil, which is in the very middle. The B pencils are dark and soft and require little pressure to apply their dark tones. The H pencils are lighter and great for sketching in light places where the highlights will be. They are also good for sketching over the B pencils to make them smooth, as B pencils can be a little "grainy" and using the H pencils to smooth it out will save you the risk of pressing on the paper too hard.

This is as detailed as I can get about my method of shading muscle. I really hope this helps and I hope that I didn't confuse you too much. I am not very good at communicating and this stuff is very hard to explain.

If you have any more questions then let me know.

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I can't write to save my life, but I can draw anything in front of me, WTF is with that!?

My dragon eggs --> [link]

Lots of practice. It's kinda hard to explain. What exactly do you want to know, because it isn't exactly something I can teach.

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I can't write to save my life, but I can draw anything in front of me, WTF is with that!?

My dragon eggs --> [link]