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Hi! I love your pegasi and have been subscribed to your blogs for several years now.
Do you think pegasi, gryphons and etc will land on their hind legs or forelegs after flying?
It seems to me that artists often draw creature's landing on their hind legs, like birds, but wouldn't it be more logical to repeat the landing of a four-legged animal after jumping? Even if it will be smooth like landing an airplane. They can land on their hind legs in place, but it requires a lot of wing work.
Hi there! And thanks for being here for so long :)
Great question, this was a fun one to work out lore for!
I think 4-legged flying creatures should land on their hind legs.
A horse jumping over a jump fence must land on its front legs and propel the momentum forward. That's generally harmless with standard jump heights, but is still stressful on the front legs, shoulders, neck, and spine. There's no way to slow the physics down and the front half of the body must absorb the full impact of the landing.
The reason airplanes flare (tip the nose up) while landing is to present the greatest wing surface possible forward to reduce the speed, and thus the reducing the force of the landing. This will minimize stress on the airframe and generate a much slower landing speed, which reduces stress on the brakes.
Here's some basic sketches on how that manifests in pegasi (and other four-legged flying creatures).
Essentially, landing without flaring is controlled crashing. So even if it may require a little more work from the wings, the benefits of a slower landing would make an animal prefer flaring to reduce the stress on their frame and avoid serious injuries.
Iβve loved your Pegasi designs for years now, and I have to ask:
Have you ever considered a Razorbill themed Longwing. Just like. The solid black heads with the thin white striping. Theyβre my favorite seabird and this has been itching my skull for ages now.
Anyways hope you have a good evening/ day/ night!!
Hello! So glad you've stuck around :)
I have now!!!!!!! Auks are just cool in general honestly.
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PEGASUS and FLYING HORSES! ToΒ get theΒ FREEΒ MONTHLY How to THINK When You Draw digital MAGAZINEΒ (including NEW tutorials, a YEAR before they appear online!) just GO HERE!
PLUS! How to THINK When You Draw BOOKS coming to KICKSTARTER in MARCH 2026!
I think it's generally good art advice! Don't love the smallish, overly flexible wing anatomy, but that's a style thing. But I do like that they recommended "soaring" wings in general for pegasi. The movement guide very much reminds me of the pegasi from Fantasia, which weren't all too bad. I like how they take the weight of the horse into account with posing and such, as well. Overall would recommend.
This drawing is old and in fact I've posted it before, but recently Dar got a(nother) major redesign, and I liked this picture so much I decided to update and recolor it. So here it is! My son <3 (For now I will keep the old version up in the archive for record-keeping purposes i guess)
OC ref day! Vinyan's turn finally! His wings aren't visible in the fullbody drawing for non-angsty reasons (lying) (more details here )
The white spots on his wings were a last minute decision but I like it, for the last 10 years or so he had completely gold wings which. are cool! But I want them to be more unique even if he doesn't have them anymore haha
His hair does whatever tf it wants and that's the main reason this took so long to finish. Scruffy cowboy man. His feathers are in fact metallic like the feathers on a hummingbird throat. They burnish over time with wear and tear until he moults and replaces them:
Realistically such a heavy amount of iridescence would probably not work on the flight feathers bc it changes their structure and makes them less useful, more like peacock tail feathers, but oh well lol I do what I want and Vinyan's a special golden boy. His life is terrible so the least I could do was make him stupidly pretty
He is Rhia's big brother! The duo ever agh I love them
Another OC, Rhia. Constantly acts like she's about to fall asleep because she's never sure where her next meal's coming from and needs to conserve her energy for flying. Supremely laid-back but also loves talking shit to people she doesn't like. Looking for a long-lost brother who wandered off when she was ten and is *not* dead, she's sure of it. Is the only winged character in the story who honestly never gave a shit about who her parents are or where she came from. She's just here for a good time lmao
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Quick Leif sketch :)
Used a reference (with adjustments to the tail) from the Exotic Animal Photo Reference Repository (awesome site, go check it out!)
Man this kid is hard to draw. He calls himself Dar's brother but Dar has never met him in his life and is maybe a little unsettled about it. Where Leif comes from, Hapabryn are not a secret, and therefore he's sort of oblivious to how eye-catching he looks to humans. I had to make his wings darker blue than they used to be because he straight-up looked like the old twitter logo. He still does but at a more acceptable level. I am so in love with the color blue that it's frankly disgusting and he is my outlet lmao
Today's fun fact about Hapabryn: their wings have three modes. Fully hidden; visible and full-sized for flying; and visible but slightly smaller to make navigating land easier. Reason: So I can be slightly inconsistent with what size I draw them and no one can question me :D
Dar's ref here
World's most casual ref sheet for my boy, since I had all these drawings lying around I decided to put em together. The only thing you can't rly see is that his eyes are green, oh well. The fullbody is part of a height reference sheet of a bunch of my main ocs from his story (which I also want to share soon). I should also explain at some point how his wings work since there's a bit of shapeshifting shenanigans involved, but for now just know he can fully hide his wings and tail except for a small patch of feathers on his back, meaning he spends much of the story pretending to be a regular human. Oh and his species is called Hapabryn.
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My thoughts on drawing wings (an unofficial tutorial)
Do you want to get better at drawing your favorite winged character? Do you have winged OCs? Just want to learn something new? I can't promise this post will help, but maybe it'll give you some helpful tips.
I know, I knowww, wing tutorials have been done to death. I don't care. This was initially inspired by a conversation on twitter, but actually I've wanted to write down my notes on the topic for a long time lol. Basically wings are one of my special interests so it's very important, for me, to draw them both nicely and also realistically.
On that note, let me first show you my resume *distant sound of floodgates opening*
Like what you see? Read on!
(Oh, and I will only be covering feathered/avian wings bc those are the type I know best.)
Now, I'm not here to give you a step-by-step guide on wing anatomy and aerodynamics, because there are plenty of other resources that cover this already, and I'll list my faves at the end of the post. Right now, I'm going to give you some easy guidelines and tricks that I wish more artists knew.
1: Wings do, in fact, have bones (crazy, I know) and are actually very rigid because they have to support the weight of a living creature. There are some positions you cannot physically force a wing into irl.
2: Flight feathers are not placed willy-nilly on the wing, because then they wouldn't catch the air properly. Again, like the bones, they are rigid and strong, so don't draw them like fur or ribbons. All wings have the same pattern of feather placement, with slight variation depending on species. If you learn the feather sections, it will automatically improve your drawings a lot.
2.5: Feathers overlap each other like a handful of playing cards, and this looks different depending on which side of the wing you're drawing. They always do this unless they're extremely untidy.
3: The size of the wingspan is important if you're going for a more realistic design. There is no "scientifically accurate" measurement when it comes to fictional creatures, but my general rule is when in doubt, you probably need to make them bigger. Personally, for my original winged human species, I give them wings that can be up to 12 feet long each (the artistic sacrifice is that it's really hard to fit the wings on the dang page lmao, so make your own call).
4: Get used to drawing folded wings. Most of the time, birds keep their wings folded because it prevents them from getting damaged and it conserves energy. The trick is to get good at visualizing how the joints bend and overlap (look at plenty of photos!) In general, they can fold much tighter than you think.
5: Wings and feathers take a lot of patience to draw, but the results are worth it. I've seen so so many incredibly beautiful and skillful artworks that are---well, maybe not ruined, but still negatively affected by a pair of wings that look like an afterthought, or not even like wings at all. You have no idea how much a little extra time and practice will add to your work until you see for yourself.
Finally, some notes on "stylized" wings: Of course it's perfectly ok to draw more simplified/cartoony wings if that's your preference!! BUT there is a difference between a stylistic choice and a lack of effort/poor understanding of the subject matter. Even cartoonists have to learn the fundamentals of realism so they know how to make their designs logical and appealing. Here are some examples of more stylized wings that I feel retain the core principles of anatomy/aesthetics:
And last but not least: A list of helpful links I use personally for reference and inspiration!
I made this pinterest board for general artsy inspo, and this board to curate my very favorite tutorials/refs/information, focusing on the scientific aspect of wings and flight in general. Feel free to use both! (I also suggest pinterest in general for pose refs and such, but try to only practice using photos at first and not other drawings.)
I highly recommend this blog and this blog if you want examples of artists who draw more realism-based winged creatures!! They are both huge inspirations for me and I think you should totally follow them even if you don't plan to draw wings lol <3
If you're REALLY serious about it, my favorite ref books are: Winged Fantasy, a lovely drawing book by Brenda Lyons; Proctor & Lynch's Manual of Ornithology; and Angelus vincens by R. Spano, which is essentially an artbook by someone who (I believe) designed biologically plausible "angels" for their senior thesis.
Ok, idk how to end this lol but I hope it helped! I know it's not my normal kind of post but I'm super busy with college stuff rn and this was all I had time for. If you guys have any questions or feedback, please let me know!!!
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