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Furries FureverJared Hodges & Lindsay Cibos

Bonus Content:Caribou Dancer

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FURRIES FUREVER: Bonus Content

1 Brainstorm Character DesignStart by doing some exploratory

thumbnails. The term refers to the size of the drawings—typically no more than a few inches. The benefit of keeping things small, is it lets you can sketch quickly, great for trying out lots of ideas, and seeing the big picture, without getting caught up in unimportant details.

Every creature makes and is made by their environment—this anthro caribou makes the most of hers. Caribou, members of the deer family, are hardy, cold weather specialists, with sturdy hooves and thick, double-layered fur. With a body well suited to the frigid Arctic, she performs a tradi-tional dance routine, outdoors in the dead of winter, and in minimal garb, all without

freezing her keister off! While drawing may not come as naturally to humans, as frolicking in snowdrifts comes to her, prac-tice makes perfect! In this tutorial, I’ll walk you through the artistic process, taking the character from rough concept to finished colors. So, whatever the temperature out-side, warm up your drawing hand and let’s get started!

Caribou Dancer Demonstration

Bonus Content by Lindsay Cibos!

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FURRIES FUREVER: Bonus Content

Hair and FaceStudy the animal you’re drawing for accuracy and inspiration. I drew her hair in thick segments to simulate the caribou’s shaggy white neck fur.

PosesI find it helps to develop the various aspects of the character design separately—pose, attitude, body type, hair, facial details, and attire—before attempting to put it all together, especially if you only have a fuzzy concept for the character. I had a couple different ideas for the caribou, from gentle friend of the forest, surrounded by birds and small animals, to defiant defender, all of which somehow solidified into her being a timid but passionate dancer. That’s the creative pro-cess though; sometimes you don’t know where it’ll take you.

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FURRIES FUREVER: Bonus Content

CostumeNext up, attire! The design of the outfit is an opportunity to say something about the character’s personality and interests, just as the clothes you wear make a statement about you! Since the caribou clearly wanted to dance, I dressed her in a belly dancer-esque costume with flowing tassels, perfect for conveying motion without obscuring her figure.

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FURRIES FUREVER: Bonus Content

Mix and MatchLook over your thumbnail sketches, and combine your favorites into a single rough drawing to see if the outfit, pose, and other details gel together. This will be the roadmap for the final image, so be sure you’re happy with it before moving forward!

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FURRIES FUREVER: Bonus Content

2 Sketch the Body PositionOn a fresh sheet of paper, let’s

rebuild our thumbnail caribou at full size. First, sketch a sweeping line of action that expresses the motion of her dance. Then draw a circle for the head; add guidelines for the eyes and front of face. Build up the rest of the torso with simple shapes. Draw a line down the center of the form to show the twist of her spine.

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FURRIES FUREVER: Bonus Content

3 Build up the ShapesSketch an almond-shaped eye

resting on the head’s horizontal guideline. Next, draw the curve of the brow, extruding out from the front of the face, and sloping down to form the muzzle. Attach the ear and antlers towards the back of the head; use guidelines to align the tips. Then draw the basic shape of the arms and legs, posed in a graceful pirouette. Caribou have four toes on each foot: a pair of hoofs that touch the ground, and above that, a pair of dewclaws for extra support in the snow. Finally, add a fluffy tail bump on her rump!

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FURRIES FUREVER: Bonus Content

4 Sketch the ClothingSketch the basic lines of her out-

fit and accessories. It’s a good idea on focus wrapping the clothing around the body shapes correctly, before laying on the details. Sketch her hair in soft clumps, pulling to the side to suggest movement as she twirls on her hooves. You can further convey motion by drawing the skirt light and floaty, lifting away from the body. For the braided tassels, start by sketching a series of overlapping spheres.

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FURRIES FUREVER: Bonus Content

5 Add DetailsWork your way through the

drawing, refining your lines and add-ing detail. Try to balance the pressure of your strokes; use light pencil lines for softer elements such as her hair, and bold lines for shadowed areas like under her head. Further empha-size the liveliness of her dance by incorporating some dangling jewelry throughout the design. Finish the braided tassels by drawing a dividing line down the center of each circular segment. As an aside, don’t be afraid to deviate from the original concept; I omitted the perching bird because I felt the design worked just as well without it. When you’re done, erase your guidelines.

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FURRIES FUREVER: Bonus Content

6 Finish with ColorDecide on a color palette for your

image. I’m going with the typical cari-bou coloration of brown and white, plus fuchsia for her frocks to bring more color into the picture. Then paint your image with the base colors you’ve selected. Next, determine the location of the light source(s) (here, a mostly overhead light), and place the shadow tones accordingly. In this case, the darkest areas are around creases, on the underside of objects, and areas where something is block-ing the light, like underneath the arm, neck, and the skirt—basically, wherever there’s an absence of light. Then layer on the highlight tones where the light is strongest; place an extra bit of highlight in the eye and silver jewelry to really make them shine. Finally, blend out any harsh brushstrokes for a smooth finish!

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FURRIES FUREVER: Bonus Content

Draw FurriesEmbark on journey of discovery as you learn to draw furry features, faces and full figures! Challenge yourself with different tips and techniques meant for drawing a furry, anthropomorphic cat, dog, horse, rodent or bird, then learn how to blend human and animal features to cap it all off!

Draw More FurriesLearn how to give your animal character human features, and explore tips and tricks for creating furry, feathered and scaled furries. Which will all lead up to discovering how to define your own furry drawing style!

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