Good afternoon everyone today I would like to talk about my pony drawing of Whisky!
After finishing my horse Lexi I decided it would be appropriate if I worked on a pony drawing of whiskey. Whisky is Lexi’s pasture buddy and is also my nephew’s horse. I love drawing horses. I have loved horses since I was little so they are very close to my heart. Whiskey is such an adorable pony and incredibly sweet pony. If you spent much time around ponies you know that some can be little demonic nightmares. But this guy is a total sweetheart.
Pony Drawing reference photo
I really enjoyed this pony drawing. The colouration was one I had not done before and so it was a bit of a challenge. For light coloured animals what I have found works, is adding a 1 or 2 light layers using the lightest colour they have. In this case cream, and then adding the darker colours on top. If you find the colours are too dark add more light layers over them. This will set them into the piece. The hair was really fun. He has tons of hair, I added variety by making some hair clumped and some that were wavy some are bent and out of place. This is very important otherwise your pony drawing will look too uniform and unrealistic. Even with the classiest of ponies they have at least one hair that is out of place.
So for this pony drawing I wanted it more detailed. So I looked at the reference photo hard. Ok where are there lots of details?
- Eyes
- Nose/muzzle
- Where the fur changes direction
- Mane
As you can see from this photo, I have pointed to all the areas that will add interest to my pony drawing. Zoom in to see more if you need to, also if you find your reference photo is a little light use the Levels adjustment to lighten or darken your photo. Here you can see from these close ups you can see more details, you also can see hair direction which is possibly the most important thing to learn.
So what else can make your pony drawing more realistic? Variety, we have talked about variety of the mane. But also inside the coat are many colours! I like to use the colour picker in Photoshop to get an idea of the colours I will need for this piece. So what I have found works is to use various shades of colours, of course try to match the colours that are showing on your reference photo .Zoom into your reference photo to make sure you can see all the little details that will make your drawing pop in a realistic way.
Here are some work in progress shots of my pony drawing. Note how I mostly finish each area before moving on. Artists work in a variety of ways. Some prefer to work on the whole drawing and build the entire drawing in layers. Personally I find I get bored when I use this method. I also have not yet managed to master the technique of not smudging my drawing so to work on the whole thing is a bit chaotic for me. It is best to work in a way you are most comfortable with. It is only when you are comfortable that you will make your best work.
The finished pony drawing
I hope you like this little guy. I thoroughly enjoyed working on him.
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