The VG Resource

(03-18-2012, 01:38 PM)Cytric Acid Wrote: [ -> ]Aaah, cat anatomy! It's quite hard, isn't it? You're thinking of it too much like a dog. look up the bone structure of a cat, and especially study the chest. Cats don't have a chest like dogs do. to be exact, what you see of a cat's chest is really it's shoulders. their rib cage is pretty far back and doesn't influence the front too much. remember this: cat legs are REALLY bent. the bones are long, and they're bent to fit the cat.

also, you're thinking of the back legs of a cat like a dog. Cats do not put most of their weight on their front paws and leave the back to balance them. they support their weight with all of their legs under them. a good tip is to imagine that the back paws are about in line with their knees.

Also, because of the bendiness, their spines are also very curvy. You know longcat? cats have really long spines, they are just really bent normally.

on the head: while i did stylize it, i drew a diagram of how a cat's muzzle looks from the front. notice how the end of their smile is lower than the very top of the mouth. (pretend you understand that). a lot of artists think it's like a dog and draw them mostly level, or with big smiles. while it CAN work, it's best to draw it anatomically correct then figure out how to make it work.
Also, don't put the hair on until the very end. Better yet, don't even add one at all! /killed
Good luck dude. cats are really hard to draw, but if you dedicate yourself to drawing them correctly, you will be able to do it.

Yeah, sorry. I draw my cats in a manga-ish style which is why I had the hair added, and the anatomy... Loose, I guess. But I'll try to fix it.
Now I need to leave the house.
-.-

I must ask you politely to never again use "drawing something in a particular style" as an excuse for poor anatomy, my dear user. Proper anatomy and understanding of the structure of your subjects has nothing to do with the way you portray them.

That would be the same as excusing poor grammar because you are using a particular language.

this being said, steer away from stylised representations of the objects, observe REAL nature (you know, animals that aren't rainbow-colored with anime hair and eyes) and try drawing it as realistic as you can, respecting all anatomy and details. Animals are indeed a very difficult subject to master and making shortcuts like this will simply not work.

After you're comfortable with the anatomically correct drawings, then you can try stylising it. This way you'll have a cartoony animal with the key structures that will make it look like that animal.

Thanks. My spring break is coming up soon, and from there I should have a good amount of freetime to seriously study the cat's anatomy, and not a quick overview after a brain-tiring day of school. I also have a cat at my house, actually, so that should help.