So your furry feline friend has you feeling inspired, eh?  Well it is no surprise that there are plenty of tutorials on the internet on how to draw the internet’s mascot, the kittayh!  But to be honest, a lot them just ain’t that good.  What I’ve done here is weeded through the garbage and hopefully retained those tutorials which I think are worth your time.

Here we go.

Let’s not mess around – let’s start with the good $#!+  Jack Hamm really breaks it down, as he tends to do, in this book on How to Draw Animals, available here on scribd.com – if you want the physical thang, go get it here on Amazon.

Polly Pinder wrote a book on the topic, you can grab it on Amazon.

Helen South has another good one on about.com. Look at the purdy kitteh!

How awesome is this? Even the master Da Vinci was rocking out some cat drawings – righteous!

This is a nice little tutorial over on dragoart.com, How to Draw a Cat Head by finalprodigy – very nice indeed!

This dark beauty was put together by Carol Rosinski.

Carol also has this guy, buddy on a blanket

Grant Fuller gets furry in his tutorial over on artistnetwork.com.

Good little primer on getting the shape and proportion of your kitty right, by the fellow over at drawing-pencil-sketches.com.

I don’t think the artist ultimately gets the proportions just right, but you can see by this example again how to use shapes to build up your final masterpiece.

Bob Davies breaking down the shapes of a cat – it’s all about the shapes man!

Now this is just funny:

Related posts:

1. How to Draw a Rose by Carol Rosinski
2. How to Draw a Horse Tutorial
3. How to Draw a Face: 25 Tutorials

Frontal View of Human Skull

Side View of Human Skull

Both of the preceding illustrations are from Grey Anatomy.  There are also some real skulls:

Human Skull Frontal View

Human Skull Side View

Here’s another poor soul (at least I’m pretty sure they’re real!); these are nicely lit and show great detail:

Here’s another nice three quarters view, this time with a full set of teeth:

There’s also this guy with a nice and interesting looking up perspective:

This is how the master, Da Vinci himself, drew the skull:

Of course these just scratch the surface.  If you really want to dive into the anatomy of the skull and learn what each nook and cranny is called, check out one of these:

• Skull Anatomy Tutorial
• Anatomy of the Skull
• Skull Bones | Cranial and Facial Bones

Hopefully this has been helpful, and as you can see, the internet is truly awesome and a great resource when it comes to advancing your drawing skills.  I leave you with this guy, found on Flicker Commons:

Related posts:

1. How to Draw a Skull: 50 How-to’s, Tutorials, Studies, Photo References, Videos, and Inspirational Skull Illustrations
2. Drawing Study of Human Anatomy by Julius Guzy
3. 7 Tutorials on How to Draw the Human Anatomy / Body / Figure

This post is divided into two sections: first, the horse drawing tutorial that I have put together (immediately below); second, links out to other worthwhile tutorials on how to draw a horse.

How to Draw a Horse: the Drawn in Black Tutorial

Now let me start by saying that before this tutorial, I have never drawn a horse (that I can remember anyway). However, I know I can do better than most tutorials out there, so what I want to show you is how I would go about if I wanted to become an expert horse drawer (heh).  This method would work well for me, and it might work well for you!

First, find a good picture of horse. If I want to draw a realistic horse, the best thing to do is actually look at a horse.  If you don’t have one in your backyard, find an awesome picture online.  Some clutch resources are Flickr Commons, Wikimedia Commons, and of course Google Images.  We’re looking for pictures that are large in size, good resolution, and with proper contrast so they make nice print-outs.  Here’s a picture I found via Google Images: a pretty badass wallpaper a wild horse on its hind legs.

Next, print out the picture. The first thing I did was crop it in Photoshop so that it would fill out the entire sheet, and then printed it out:

Now the first thing I want to do is explore the shapes of this horse.  I’ll do that using my lightbox and a separate sheet of paper (don’t worry, this is NOT a tutorial on how to trace a horse).  The lightbox I’m using is the Artograph Lighttracer Elite:

Then, trace the major shape masses of the horse. Put the horse printout on the lightbox, overlay it with a sheet of paper, and then find the large shapes that make up the horse:

What this gives you now is a general sense of the shape masses of the horse and the proportion they have to one another.

Next, freestyle an outline of the horse. The final drawing will not be traced, but by tracing, our hands and minds get acquainted with the horse so that when we freehand we already have a much better sense of how all the parts fit together.

Now that we’re more familiar with the horse, let’s go ahead an sketch it out freehand (remember, we’re NOT tracing this drawing!):

Freehand the horse outline.  This was my first pass just getting the basic shapes of the horse down.  Having traced the horse before, this is much easier to get down.

Find the shade shapes. After you have the basic outline of the horse on paper, it’s time to explore in more detail and putting the outlines of the various gray values down.  I like to just go ahead and pencil in absolute black value shapes right away.

Finally, shade the horse. Here I’ve completed most of the shading using cross-hatching.  Finally I cleaned it all up a bit and darkened the outline so it would pop a bit more:

Overall, I worked fairly quickly, so there’s obviously a lot of room for improvement.  I wasn’t particularly loose, so the horse actually looks stiff.  You’ll also notice that the neck and head are a bit shrunken and that the tail could look a bit more like hair.

But if you want to learn how to draw a horse, this is how I would go about it.  Hopefully this little how to will be of benefit to you, definitely let me know in the comments what you think.

For more horse madness, here are additional horse tutorials worth your time.

More Horse Drawing Tutorials

Draw a Horse by Helen South

Short and sweet, breaks down the overall shape masses of the horse fairly well.  Definitely worth your time to study.

How to Draw a Horse by emfrank09

Video on Youtube – nicely rendered horse, always helpful to watch someone else drawing something you’re trying to get down!

How to Draw a Horse by kimibee91

Another nice tutorial on Youtube, again based on the constituent shapes of a horse.

Drawing Horses by Suz on Elfwood

Nice compilation of different aspects of drawing horses. From anatomy to various horse poses, this should definitely help you out.

Draw 50 Horses by Lee Ames

If you really want to get serious, I suggest thinking about buying a book devoted to the topic.  This is a really nice one and highly rated on Amazon.  You can also check out the book preview for some freebie tutorials

How to Draw Horses in Simple Steps by Eva Dutton

Another book worth your while, again highly rated.

Drawing Horses by Walter Foster

This book really takes a detailed look on all aspects of the horse and Walter Foster’s drawings are superb.

Drawing Made Easy Horses and Ponies by Patricia Getha

And finally, this book by Patricia Getha is great if you want to learn how to draw different types of horses.

Use our book links to support Drawn in Black! If you are thinking of buying something on Amazon, simply use this link to go to Amazon – I get a small referral commission from Amazon and you don’t pay a dime extra!  It helps me a lot in continuing this site, so thank you in advance.

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial, please let me know when you think in the comment section. Happy drawing

Related posts:

1. 10 Tutorials on How to Draw a Cat
2. “Making work makes me want to make more work” – Interview with Henry St.Leger (aka Sainty WHAT)
3. How to Draw Hands: 35 Tutorials, How-To’s, Step-by-Steps, Videos, Studies, Poses and Photo References

Tutorials

UPDATE 12/10/11: If you’re looking for even more eye drawing resources, check out this great Squidoo lens on how to draw eyes compiled by Martin Stankewitz!

Figure Drawing For All It's Worth by Andrew Loomis (p. 176)

Drawing the Human Head by Burne Hogarth (p. 37)

Eye Drawing Tutorial by Brian Huey

How to Draw Eyes by Stanislav Prokopenko

Drawing the Human Eye on OnlyPencil

How to Draw Eyes on DrawFurry

How to Draw Eyes: The Male Eye by Cataclysm-X

How to Draw Eyes by JR Dunster

How to Draw a Realistic Eye by DorsY69

How to draw the femal eye on Instructables

Female Eye by Faith Te

Drawing Cartoon Eyes by Pete Emslie

Cartoon Eye Reference Sheet

Manga / Anime Eyes

Drawing the Manga Eye by Archvermin on DeviantArt

Tutorial: Create Unique Anime Eyes by Kikariz on DeviantArt

Draw Female Anime Eyes

How to Draw Eyes by Koda Tadashi

Videos

Photo References

Eye Stock Images on DeviantArt

Eye Images on Flickr

Eye Stock Images on morgueFile

40 Amazing Female Eye Photography by Amir

Related posts:

1. How to Draw Hands: 35 Tutorials, How-To’s, Step-by-Steps, Videos, Studies, Poses and Photo References
2. 7 Tutorials on How to Draw the Human Anatomy / Body / Figure
3. How to Draw a Face: 25 Tutorials

Drawing faces or portaits is, to me, a bit of a paradox.  It is that part of our body which most distinguishes us from others (as an identifying physical trait), but that part of the body which we see the least during our lives.  When we do, we do not see our face as others, but rather the mirror reflection, the opposite. It is the seat of the outward manifestation of our inner emotional lives, and yet also draws emotional responses from the outside.  Faces can take on an almost infinite of shapes that express the many subtle variations of our inner being, and thus present a unique challenge in rendering on paper.

Thus, practice, as ever, is of the essence, especially when you want to draw faces.  I have collected here some materials that should aid you in your quest of drawing the face just right.  Hopefully they are of help, and as always, any comments or feedback is much appreciated.

How-To’s, Tutorials, and Step-By-Steps

As you’re learning to draw faces, the first thing to get a grasp of is facial proportions.  Our faces are a beautiful harmony of various proportions, deviations from which our eyes easily detect even if only on a subconscious level.  Here are a handful of resources to get you going on facial proportions.

Short tutorial on the proper proportions of the face on tipdeck.com.

Step-by-step instructions on how to draw a face on wikiHow

Step-by-step face drawing tutorial by Stephanie Valentin

Several portrait tutorials on artyfactory.com

Quick portrait drawing tutorial, by Tina Poe.

Good tutorial on how to shade a face, by Brian Duey

Books

Please be aware that any book on this site is linking to Amazon, of which I am an affiliate.  That means that when you make a purchase on Amazon using one of my links, Amazon reimburses me a small percentage (at no cost to you!).  This greatly helps me maintain this site and provide content.  Your support is great appreciated!

“The Artist’s Complete Guide to Drawing the Head” by William Maughan

This book is a bit more advanced and has received great reviews on Amazon, although it’s primarily focused on drawing the three-quarter portrait pose.

“How to Draw Lifelike Portraits from Photographs” by Lee Hammond

As the name implies, if you are interested in drawing lifelike portraits based on photographs, this is the way to go. Lee Hammond is a great instructor and you’ll learn all about pencil technique along the way.

“How to Draw Faces” by Barbara Soloff Levy

You can’t really go wrong with starting with a book on how to draw faces. Beware, however, that this a book targeted at children.

Facial Expressions

Once you have a good, firm grasp on drawing proper facial proportions and such, it’s time to broaden your scope and tackle the thousands of expressions that we humans use to communicate with one another.  Here are a few resources to get you going.

Explore facial anatomy and expressions interactively, by Victoria Flores.

Tool to create expressions based on emotions.

Guide to 50 facial expressions, by Dani Jones.

“The Artist’s Complete Guide to Facial Expression” by Gary Faigin

“Facial Expressions” by Mark Simon

Videos

It’s always good to see how other people work – you can learn a lot just by watching. So below I’ve compiled some videos that do a fairly decent job of explaining how to draw faces.

Online Books

Sometimes to really dive into a topic you just need to get a book – a website isn’t gonna cut it. If you really wanted to get going on drawing faces and cannot wait to order a book, here are some online books that you can read.

Just for Fun

Finally for the doodler in all of us – how to draw faces the doodle way:

Related posts:

1. 7 Tutorials on How to Draw the Human Anatomy / Body / Figure
2. How to Draw Hands: 35 Tutorials, How-To’s, Step-by-Steps, Videos, Studies, Poses and Photo References
3. How to Draw Eyes: 25 Tutorials, Step-by-Steps, How-To’s and Reference Photos on How to Draw Human Eyes

• Tutorials, How-To’s and Step-by-Step’s
• Videos
• Anatomy
• Books
• Poses
• Photo Reference

Tutorials, How-To’s and Step-by-Step’s

It’s often useful to have a step-by-step guide, tutorial, or “recipe” on how to accomplish a certain task.  I’ve found that following steps is good to grasp basic concepts before going on to experiment and expand one’s understanding.  Tutorials on drawing hands are no different, and the tutorials and how-to’s listed below should be a good starting point.

J. Peffer created some nice step-by-steps for about a handful of hand poses.

Nice little tutorial by Ron Lemen.

Tom Richmond’s site is a must-go for any aspiring cartoonist and caricaturist and has a wealth of information.

Joumana Medlev has a superb introduction on the anatomy of hands on DeviantArt; also check out her work on cedarseed.com.

Quick hands and feet tutorial on Scribd by unknown author.

This tutorial is a bit different in that it’s more focused on how to draw using a graphic tablet as opposed to a hand per se. Nonetheless, it’s never bad to learn two things at once, so check out Whyball’s “How to Draw a Classic Hand using a Graphics Tablet” over on GoMediaZine.

Short and sweet hand drawing tut by uchuucacahuate on deviantart.

(Very) short but good tutorial by nk-chan on deviantart.com.

Excellent hand tutorial by alexds1 on deviantart.com – I really wish I could executive cartoon hands like that!

Good step-by-step tutorial by vashs-angel on deviantart.com: simple illustrations and descriptive text.
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Videos

Often it’s helpful to see someone else do something, not just in pictures, but in real-time.  Here are some videos that show hands being drawn:

For you all you manga heads out there, you wanna go check out Mark Crilley’s channel on YouTube on how to draw manga. Among those the video above on how to draw a hand holding a sword and how to just draw a hand.

Nice demonstration on how to draw a hand by cattusOK on YouTube.

Here we have another tutorial on how to draw female hands, also executed in Photoshop, via WonderHowTo.
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Anatomy

As one of the more complex instruments of the body, a sound understanding of underlying anatomy of hands can help considerably when trying to render realistic and convincing hands in your drawings.  Below are resources that should help you begin to understand how hands truly work.

The Wikimedia Commons continues to be a great place to find reference material, such as the hand anatomy plate from Gray’s Anatomy of the Human Body pictured above.

Drawing and Anatomy by Victor Perard has pretty in depth coverage of human anatomy even though the drawings aren’t the best I’ve seen.  Nonetheless, very useful for the artist seeking to deepen their understanding of anatomy.

A more comprehensive discussion on drawing hands and feet which (I believe) originated on WetCanvas by JayD and then ended up on document form on Scribd.

Great mini-tutorial on hands by T. Arthur Smith on DeviantArt, looking to go beyond a tutorial on simply the idealized form of the hand.

I’ve mentioned him before in the post on skulls, and I’ll mention him again here: check out Michael Hensley for some great anatomical drawings with a distinctive style.
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Books

Perhaps the ultimate “tutorial” on drawing hands, “Drawing Dynamic Hands” by Burne Hogarth is a must-have reference book in your library. You can buy it here on Amazon.

Mr. Hogarth has more hand material in that most amazing work, Dynamic Anatomy.  You can buy it here on Amazon.

Thankfully there’s a copy of “Drawing Head and Hands” over at Scribd, by that other master of drawing, Andrew Loomis. The section on drawing hands isn’t as comprehensive as that on heads, but a great resource nonetheless, especially when trying to draw non-male hands (female, baby, etc.).

George Bridgman is the author of yet another treasure of a book on drawing.  Above you can see a plate from his the chapter on hands in the book Constructive Anatomy, available at the Internet Archive (or here via Scribd).
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Poses

Here’s a list of resources that display hands from many different angles.  It’s truly remarkable just how many poses the hand can be seen in.

Useful collection of hand poses by Chrissy Fellmeth.

More hand poses by what-i-do-is-secret on deviantart.com.

A nice little collection of female hand poses by artrush73′s hub page.

Mickey Mouse Hand Model Sheet by Les Clark

The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive has some true gems when it comes to old drawings, such as this hand model sheet of Mickey Mouse by Les Clark from 1932.  Lot of other great stuff too, check it out. Found via this post on Animopus.

Another hand model sheet can be found on the Ultimate Iron Giant website, this one in particular being of Hogarth’s hand.  There’re literally a ton of other drawings on sketches related to the Iron Giant, you’ll find the hands in about the middle of the page.

Nice little reference on drawing animal hands/paws provided by Kelly on drawfurry.com.

Great study of the hand in its many incarnations – love the minimal style here.  By jimmymcwicked on deviantart.com.
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Photo References

Although you’ve got a pair for easy reference, it can help to look at a photo of a real hand, especially for awkward angles.  Here are a few sites that should give you ample hand pose pictures for hours of hand-drawing fun.

Nice collection of hand poses taken by Thomas A of Ander’s hands, via elfwood.com.

This site is certainly something out of the ordinary: Hands for Drawing by Pose Maniacs allows you select various hand poses and then turn them in 3D (select one of the numbers in the right-hand menu).  Great when you can’t find a proper reference at just the right angle.

Nice collection of both male and female hands in various interesting poses.

Female left hands by WindsweptSummer on deviantart.com.

Hand holding pencil by dragyourstock on deviantart.com.

Related posts:

1. How to Draw a Skull: 50 How-to’s, Tutorials, Studies, Photo References, Videos, and Inspirational Skull Illustrations
2. How to Draw Eyes: 25 Tutorials, Step-by-Steps, How-To’s and Reference Photos on How to Draw Human Eyes
3. 7 Tutorials on How to Draw the Human Anatomy / Body / Figure

Whatever the case, at the end of day, skulls are pretty cool! Which is exactly why I set out to put together of a haphazard list of drawings, photos, tutorials & how-tos, videos, and illustrations dealing with the human skull.

I hope it proves useful to you and inspires you as it has me. So without further ado, categorized by what seemed to make sense, skulls:

• Anatomical Studies of Skulls
• How-to’s and tutorials on drawing skulls
• Stylized Skulls
• Photo references of Skulls
• Websites devoted to skulls

Enjoy!

Anatomical Studies of Skulls

Update: See also Skull Anatomy for Artists

Skull Left Lateral Index from Gray’s Anatomy of the Human Body

Skull Plate by Dr. Bock

Human Skull Engraving by William Miller

Human Skull Side from David Darling’s Internet Encyclopedia of Science. Great resource for the anatomy of the human skull.

Skull Drawings by Paul Doeman

Skull Drawing by Ha Young Lee

Skull Sketches by Nadine Gorham

Idealized Proportion Human Figure, The Human Skull, Plate VII by Michael M. Hensley. You’ve got to check this guy’s website out, Human Anatomicae: he’s got fantastic reference drawings of the human bodies. Especially useful is the section on hands and feet – but that’s another post

Skull – Front and Side View by krisheding

Skull Drawing by Nicole Breedyk (via Flickr)

Skull Page by Steven Russell Black (via Flickr)

How-to’s and tutorials on how to draw skulls

How to Draw a Skull on 2d-Digital-Art-Guide

How To Draw A Skull And Crossbones on Drago-Art

Discover Easy Steps To Have Your Pencil Drawing Of A Skull on Pencil-Drawing-Idea.com

How to Draw a Skull on ExpertVillage.com

Drawing the Human Skull on draw23.com

Draw a Skull with a Wacom Tablet from Go Media on Vimeo.

Stylized Skulls

Skull Reference by Matthew Amey. The image above is one of 151 drawings of the human skull Matthew Amey did in 2003. Those along with skull drawings by 150 artists can be found on the website: this is definitely for all the skull lovers out there. Here’s another one from the book (which you can buy here):

Skull by Ron Domstead

La Coka Nostra by Brian Morris. This guy has some real dope drawings and illustrations. You can get the above image on a T-Shirt over at shopbenchmark.com. One of his tees is also featured on Threadless Select.

Pinstripe Skull by Rob Schwager. Above available as print Schwager’s online store.

Skull by hydro74 and another one by the same artist:

Skull Illustration by hydro74… siiick.

Machine Skull by Eliot Flores – When I first stumbled upon this picture I thought it’d be from hydro74, they look somewhat similar… can’t decided which one is sicker!

Scaphocephaly by R. E. Wolf (via Flickr)

Trophy Skull by Danny PiG (via Flickr)

Snake and Skull by Joe_13 (via Flickr)

Pumpkin Pattern – Skulls by Chris Rushing (via Flickr)

Skull by b.media (via Flickr)

Skull Head72 by ceroakb1 (via Flickr)

Metal Skull by Marcus Tegtmeier (via Flickr)

Skull & Lotus by Usugrow – this guy is incredible, and he loves skulls. You can also check out this bit on an Usugrow art opening on Fecal Face.

Alien Biker Skull by Von R. Glitschka

Grunge Skull Illustration by Chad Lonius. Chad’s got some sick illustrations and gives away free vector illustrations from time to time, including the one shown above!

Another Skull by Shane from ShanesArt.com – dude’s got some sick skills.

Tribal Skull by Ty Lombardi

Skull Tattoo by Bazaar

Photo references of skulls

Human Skull by David Liittschwager on California Academy of Sciences Skulls website – great resource for all kinds of funky skulls.

Human Skull by DeLoy Roberts – Granted this picture is kind of crappy, but his website has tons of animal skulls as well.

Azibaza has some crazy items for sale – unfortunately this Tibetan carved human skull is sold out. Definitely check out some of their other items, including their kapalas (skull caps).

More crazy skulls can be found over at tribalartasia.com, including this Naga Headhunting Human Trophy Skull.

Cradleboard Skull from bmezine.com. Although retired, you can still look at the pictures of skulls – this one in particular from the “Deformation and other Unique Defects” category.

You can find skull replicas of all kinds of hominids over Skulls Unlimited (in the Fossil Hominids section), including this Homo neanderthalensis skull.

More ostheological reproductions are available from Bone Clones, including this skull with brain… cool

Human Skull with Horns from subversiveelement.com. According to this most entertaining site, this skull was found in 1880′s in Pennsylvania, USA, but was subsequently stolen. Sitting on top of male skeletons 7 ft. tall, these would have made for some scary fellows.

For more bizarre skulls check out this skull of a supposed fishman; apparently quite a few of them have been found according to dominorus’ site.

Websites Devoted to Skulls

For those of you who haven’t gotten their fill, here are more websites devoted to skulls exclusively:

Skull-A-Day – the blog of artist Noah Scalin. Not too long ago he decided to make a one skull a day for a year, and so he did. Recently completed, the blog lives on with user contributed skulls and spawned a book that you can find through IndieBound.

I Want Your Skull – great site that also publishes its own little sweet zine. Great skull art and plenty of inspiration here.

Sweet Skulls.com – Examines the skull in pop culture. You’ll find a lot of old b-movie posters and other assorted trash art.

Stuff to buy

The End, almost

No post on skulls would be complete without a nod to Skullface himself, Ghost Rider:

Ghost Rider cover by Marc Silvestri

… but the last laugh goes to the ultimate bonehead:

Related posts:

1. How to Draw Hands: 35 Tutorials, How-To’s, Step-by-Steps, Videos, Studies, Poses and Photo References
2. Skull Anatomy for Artists
3. Drawings and Tutorials by Brian Ewing

“Figure Drawing for All It’s Worth” by Andrew Loomis (PDF, 24MB)

One of the quintessential books by Hogarth on drawing the human figure: a must have!

Big Guide to Drawing the Body by Cedarseed on deviantArt

Character Drawing by Tracy Butler

The Human Body by J. Peffer

Human Proportions by Don Jusko

Many more Youtube videos by Riven Phoenix

Human Anatomy by Rey Bustos

Related posts:

1. Drawing Study of Human Anatomy by Julius Guzy
2. How to Draw Hands: 35 Tutorials, How-To’s, Step-by-Steps, Videos, Studies, Poses and Photo References
3. How to Draw Eyes: 25 Tutorials, Step-by-Steps, How-To’s and Reference Photos on How to Draw Human Eyes

How to Draw a Cow and Rhino by Joe Weatherly

By Joe Weatherly

No related posts.

"How to Draw a Rose" - Carol Rosinski

Sappy, yes, but being able to draw a rose can come in handy for that special lady. By Carol Rosinski

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