cabbagehead
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Practice!
How? There are a few different methods depending on the style you want to draw in:
You can start by practicing with photos. Photo editing software like Photoshop and GIMP let you create a layer on top of an original image that you can draw on. Find an animal photo you like, and draw over that. After a while you will get a feel for the proportions of the animal you are drawing.
When drawing freehand, most artists start with a geometric mock-up. A very basic outline is drawn around the animal's general shape: if your subject was an elephant, you might draw a large oval for its body, a small oval for its head, and rectangles for its trunk and legs. Details are then drawn on top of this, keeping the drawing to a general scale.
If you are drawing a cartoon animal, you are really drawing the idea of that animal: design choices can be made on what makes it stand out rather than what is accurate. A cartoon dog will probably have larger paws than an anatomically correct drawing, because it's easier to draw. An anthropomorphous animals like Daffy Duck are really a cartoon human with some added animal features. Body parts in these drawings can be divided into five equal sections: one section is the head, two sections are the torso, and two sections are the legs.
"Super deformed" drawings have the head, torso, and legs each taking a third of the drawing. This helps emphasize facial expressions, while lending an air of cuteness. This is mostly used in anime, but can also be seen in Family Guy's Brian.
 Posted 5457 day ago
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