Tutorials

Yes, feet are a wonderful part of any creature, but as any artist knows, they're also one of the hardest parts to ever draw. It takes a good long time to fully understand feet and how they work, but if you know the basic structure of them, it becomes a lot easier a lot faster ^_^

One thing you can't draw feet proper without are the legs they're attached to, so a good portion of this tutorial is also about legs. I can't tell you what to do step by step, but I will tell you the basics so you have a better idea of how to do it on your own.

Now, to start, I was to try and explain something to you. Every leg on almost every creature on this world is made pretty much the same way. There's a shoulder, or the place where it connects to the body, the long part of the upper leg, the long part of the lower leg, the "hand" or foot part, and the toes. Here, in the blue, I have the upper leg, the lower leg, and the hand all marked in blue for you to see. The fingers, or toes, ate in yellow. The pink circles are there to show you the joints in the leg: the knee or elbow, the ankle or wrist, and the place where the toes or fingers bend backwards. Don't worry if you're confused, I'll explain more!

Here I've begun to draw a little. Basically, it's the legs in the picture above simplified for you so it's easier to understand. The first leg is a back leg, and the second is a front leg. :-D Don't ask me why they're in that order. Anyway, here you can see the upper, lower, hand, and fingers, as all as all the joins, much more clearly. This is the most important part of the leg or arm, because if you don't get this part drawn right, the rest looks very bad.

If you'll notice, if I draw in a little, the back leg looks a lot like a human arm, doesn't it? That's because they hand the same structure. I went ahead and labled all the different parts for you, too, so you can see what the heck I'm talking about.

Now, to get back to drawing the legs, here I began to flesh out the legs a little with muscle. A good rule of thumb when fleshing out and adding muscles is that the long parts of the leg look like Vs. That means they're wider at the top than they are at the bottom. The hand is more like a rectangle || and the hand is wider at the top than it is at the bottom <. You can see all that in the blue :)

After doing that, it's just a good idea to clean up the image. Erase all the lines that you don't need that are getting in your way. It makes things much more simple looking.

The last things that you really need to add are the toes, and they're very simple to do. Just add a line or two on the inside of the foot to indicate where the toe is ^_^ You can also add one outside of the foot if there's a toe peeking over the top of the foot.

So now you're basically done! Change the color back to black, and, if you want, add little details to make your foot more interesting. Claws, muscle creases, and ankle lines add to any foot.

Here are just some other basic foot designs to give you some more ideas ^_^ Remember, when you're drawing and creating your own creature, anything is possible.