How to draw a horse
A horse is the hardest animal on this site, and the trick is that you never draw a horse. You draw two ovals, join them with a neck, and hang four legs off the bottom.
- 8 steps
- 10 minutes
- 4-10 Ages
- Easy
Draw it step by step
The new lines for each step are drawn in red. The grey dashed shapes are guides, sketch them lightly and rub them out at the end.
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1 Step 1: Guide shapes
Lightly sketch a small circle for the head and a big egg oval for the body.
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2 Step 2: Ear and forelock
Draw a small curved triangle for the ear on top. Add a wavy line on the forehead for the forelock, and a short curved line on the right for the neck start.
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3 Step 3: Eyes and muzzle
Draw two small circles for the eyes. Add a wide oval across the bottom of the face for the muzzle.
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4 Step 4: Neck and back
Draw a long curved line from the head down and back to make the neck and back to the rump. Add a short curved line under the neck for the chest.
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5 Step 5: Mane, neck, tail
Draw a curved tuft on top of the head for the mane. Add a big U shape for the front of the neck and chest, and a teardrop shape at the back for the tail.
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6 Step 6: Front legs start
Draw two straight lines down for the near front leg and a shorter straight line beside it for the other front leg start. Add a curved line to begin the hind leg.
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7 Step 7: Belly and hind legs
Draw a gentle curved line for the belly connecting the legs. Add two long lines to shape the near hind leg and the far hind leg.
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8 Step 8: Hooves
Add short rectangles at the bottoms of all four legs for the hooves.
What you need
A pencil, paper and an eraser. Take your time with the guides on this one. A horse punishes a rushed start more than any other subject here.
Before you start
Sketch the grey guide shapes lightly. The big oval is the body, the smaller one is the head. Leave a real gap between them, because the neck is long, and leave room under the body, because the legs are long too. Most failed horses are failed because the guides were drawn too close together.
The part most people get wrong
The legs, and specifically the knees. A horse's back legs bend BACKWARDS at the hock, like a Z, not forwards like ours. Draw the front legs as two long slightly curved lines, and the back legs with that Z zigzag. Get the zigzag and even a wobbly horse reads as a horse; miss it and a perfect horse reads as a dog.
Also: the head is a long wedge, not a circle. It gets wider at the cheek and narrower at the muzzle.
Make it your own
- Make it a pony. Shorter legs, rounder body, thicker mane. Same drawing, different proportions.
- Make it run. Front legs forward, back legs stretched behind, body tilted slightly.
- Add a saddle. A rounded shape on the back with a strap going under the belly.
- Make it a unicorn. One spiral horn on the forehead and a longer, wavier mane.
Learn more about horses
A horse walks on one finger. What looks like a knee halfway up the back leg is actually its ankle, and the hoof is a single enormous toenail. That is why the leg bends the way it does, and why your zigzag matters: you are drawing an ankle, not a knee. Horses also sleep standing up, locking the joints in the legs you just drew so they do not fall over, and they can only lie down safely for short stretches.
