HOME | DD
Zyraxus — Notes on Digitigrade Characters
Published: 2012-01-17 06:17:49 +0000 UTC; Views: 66151; Favourites: 2052; Downloads: 1531
Redirect to original
Description
Graphical vomit of some things that may or may not be useful when drawing digitigrade characters.
Thanks for viewing and faving and all your nice comments!
I'm blown away by the response this has gotten over the years.
and hey, sup, I'm Zyraxus. I draw a lot of dragons and the like.
If you'd like to keep up with my recent stuff, you can also find me here:
◄ Website || FA || Instagram || Tumblr || Twitter ►
Related content
Comments: 57
👍: 1 ⏩: 0
👍: 1 ⏩: 0
👍: 1 ⏩: 0
As someone who has multiple digitigrade characters, this will help a lot!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
well, never fursuited and don't plan too. but this is actually pretty helpful with my drawing. glad I found it
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
A useful reference. Even if plantigrade is more my thing, it certainly wouldn't hurt to know a thing or two about digitigrade legs.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
This is totally gonna help me with my anthros! Been struggling on this for a while!
Thanks, man!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Omg Thank you so much! This really helped me with my Faun OC,Drinia.😁
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thank you so much for this tutorial! It really helped me when I was drawing my OC Adela
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I have a friend who literally walks like that dumb crouched position to get attention. He can also sit in "an invisible chair" and it looks like he's actually sitting.
Why do I have friends like that???
anyway this chart is actually very very helpful to me! It also makes legs look much more natural. ^^
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
...
you make a very good point, I'd never really thought of it that way
...I have just been artistically affected: completely broken out of the 90° kneecap habit ^^'
i suppose it makes sense. Darn now I'll have to redesign the legs of ALL my digitigrade characters :/
oh well its growth. Nothing wrong with growth :3
already, comparing things I drew yesterday with things I drew a year ago, I can see skill build! This tidbit of knowledge will be an excellent addition :3
thanks 
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I'm glad this has been helpful! I feel like I should note that artistic stylization is totally okay, these are more like guidelines for what I believe is a more natural look.
Thanks for the cookie! :>
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Yes but in character design I try to go for the most anatomically possible design I can for flesh-and-blood characters (spirits, mind-manifest energy beings, illusions, and edldrich abominations break rules by their mere existence, so they're exempt), usually AFTER hitting broad details like limb number and feature and things.
Examples: when designing a character with extra eyes, I try to place them in places where the muscles of their face don't object, such as the middle of the forehead, and give them something more adequate to protect said eye(s) than eyelids.
My Hive Elves, prototype art excluded, have two main eyes and then the rest are tiny faceted chitinous ones like you would find on an insect, usually about the size of a sequin in adulthood and a hard freckle in a dimple at birth.
im currently trying to figure out how to rearrange the human torso to accommodate 4 arms, and clusters of tentacles on the shoulder blades, because I'm an art workaholic and once I pick a specific trait for an OC it gets annoying trying to put them together.
plus I can't build a realistic full-body ref if I can't figure out how to draw their limbs ^^'
.
eventually I'll have all my ppl referenced out, and then the tiny sliver of anatomy perfectionist in my subconscious will finally shut up, and at last it'll let me draw in peace.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Yay! More stuff on one of the hardest leg types to draw!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
This is indeed helpful . I see that you're using a more animal leg approach since you draw the knee part like that . Damn it's difficult not to draw the kneecap so prominent !
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Also... do you have any recommendations for putting pants on digitigrade characters?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I used to attempt to draw the pant legs all the way down to the ground but decided it looked odd at some point, however if the pantlegs flair out it works (like with Tripp pants if you're into those). Now I like to end the pantlegs at the ankle and create shoe/spat things that cover the foot portion. But in this case I recommend experimentation! It can be fun to work out snaps and stuff that takes into account tails and what not. Dunno if that helps but that's all I can think of :'D
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Yes! Very much so! Thank you!!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
OOOH YES YES YES THANK YOU SO MUCH THIS IS EXTREMELY HELPFUL TO ME!!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Going to save it so I can use it as preference when I need it.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Very interesting. I think this will help me a lot in my character design project. Thank you for uploading this!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
This is awesome. I've been looking for something like this forever!! Thank you
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I find this so helpfull, thanks for posting ^^
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Thanks a bunch for this, this actually helped me a lot in deciding whether to make an original humanoid species plantigrade or digitigrade and it will hopefully help me draw digitigrade with a flow and balance that makes much more sense.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I had that crouching problem wicked hard. This bit of study just helped me out a ton, thanks duder.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
thank you for showing how realistically digi chars aren't going to work how most people draw them...
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
A real world example is that two legged dog named Faith who was trained to walk on two legs. It really is a nice example of center of gravity changes.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Oh wow, I hadn't even realized it was possible for a two legged dog to walk like that. Thanks for pointing her out!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
just what i needed! thank you very much, i totaly agree on the awkward crouch part!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Yes, thank you. This is the reason why one of my digitigrade creatures walks with an almost theropod-like stance, even though when standing still she attempts to stand upright as an attempt to look more "human".
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Ahaha, yep, it's all about balance and weight distribution!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
When I first designed the character, I honestly didn't know what I was doing anatomy-wise. So instead of changing her leg structure, I changed her walking posture. Works just the same
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Thanks for posting this! This'll really come in handy!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Wow, this is really well done! One of the best tutorials I've seen for ages! Plus you are really good with proportions and posing...
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I'm really loving the legs... Your exceptionally good at weight distribution!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
All the Skyrim modders are looking at these notes and pining for the Morrowind days when Bethesda's devs were brave enough to try this.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
These are really useful notes >w< I leanred this more or less on my own through years of practicing, looking at pictures and walking tiptoed trying to figure out how humanized beast legs would look like >w>''
Though it always confused me in anthro drawings why they were crouching =w='''
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
| Next =>