Modelling Animal Figures
Senior 3 · Fine Arts
Modelling Animal Figures
Lesson 1 of 4
20 min
Look at the brown bull in the centre of the photograph. Its horns are almost as long as its head and neck together. Its body is a long, deep barrel, and its legs look thin for so much weight. If you modelled it from memory, you would probably make the horns too short, the legs too thick and the body too small. Sculptors avoid this by measuring an animal before they model it, and by studying how it stands, moves and rests. In this unit you will model an animal figure in clay; this lesson is about seeing it correctly first.
Definition
Proportion: the size of one part compared with another or with the whole. Example: the body is about three head lengths long.
Unit of measurement: a part of the subject used to measure the rest, usually the head length.
Action line (gesture line): one flowing line through the spine, from head to tail, that sums up the pose.
Posture: the position in which an animal holds its body: standing, grazing, sitting, lying.
Centre of gravity: the point where the weight of a body seems to act. A figure is stable when its centre of gravity is above its base of support, the area enclosed by the feet or other parts touching the ground.
Maquette: a small, quick model made to test an idea before the final sculpture.
Hold a pencil at arm's length against your reference (a real animal, a photo or a video still), mark the length of the head with your thumb, and count how many head lengths fit into the body, the legs and the neck. Write the numbers on your sketch. Figure 1 shows one set of illustrative measurements for a cow; a goat, a dog or a gorilla will give quite different numbers, and that difference is what makes each animal recognisable.
| Part | Simple form | What to look for |
|---|---|---|
| Head | a wedge or box, narrower at the muzzle | where the eyes sit; the angle of the head to the neck |
| Neck | a thick cylinder | how it joins the shoulders; whether it rises or hangs |
| Body | a barrel or egg | depth of the chest compared with the belly and rump |
| Legs | tapered cylinders with clear joints | which way each joint bends |
| Features | horns, ears, tail, mane | their length compared with the head |
Legs are where most mistakes happen. Cattle, goats and horses walk on the tips of their toes, protected by hooves. The joint halfway down a cow's front leg that looks like a knee is really its wrist, and the joint on the back leg that bends backwards is its ankle (the hock). Dogs and cats walk on their toes too, with the heel raised. Draw each leg as a zigzag of bones before you think about the outline.
Every animal has postures that belong to it: a cow grazing with its neck stretched to the ground, a goat standing up against a tree to browse, a dog sitting with its front legs straight, a hen with its head cocked to one side. Begin each study with the action line, then add the forms along it. In a walk, an animal always has at least two feet, usually three, on the ground, so a walking figure looks balanced.
Think about stability as you choose a pose for clay. Wet clay is heavy and soft; four thin legs may bend or crack. Lying, sitting and resting poses put more of the body on the ground and are much easier to model. A standing pose needs thick legs, a strong armature (Lesson 2) or a base.
Worked example 1: scaling down an animal
A bull is about 2.4 m long from chest to rump, and its head is about 0.6 m long. Uwimana models it at a scale of 1 : 10. How long should the clay body and head be?
Body: , and .
Head: , and .
Check: , so the body is 4 head lengths, the same proportion as the real animal. Scaling every part by the same factor keeps the proportions true. (These measurements are illustrative.)
Worked example 2: choosing a stable pose
Ganza wants to model a goat about 15 cm long in solid clay, with no metal armature. He considers (a) leaping, (b) standing on four legs, (c) lying with legs folded. Which pose should he choose?
(a) A leaping goat touches the ground with one or two thin legs; its centre of gravity is far from its small base, so it will fall or crack. (b) Standing is possible only with thick legs or an armature. (c) Lying puts the whole body on the ground, the widest possible base of support. He should choose (c) and show the goat's character through the raised head, ears and horns.
<em>HOW TO DRAW ANIMALS with SIMPLE SHAPES</em> (Draw a Box, Lesson 5), from the Can I Learn To Draw? channel. Watch how each animal is built from boxes, cylinders and egg shapes before any detail is added, and use the same approach in your sketches.
Warning
Drawing what you think, not what you see. Beginners give every animal a human-like knee and a round face. Keep checking the reference.
Working with live animals. Sketch from a safe distance, never stand behind a cow or a horse, and ask the owner first.
Tip
Line, shapes, measure. Draw the action line, hang simple forms on it, then measure every part in head lengths.
Practice
What is an action line, and why do you draw it first?
Which joint on a cow's front leg looks like a knee, and what is it really?
A dog's head is 4 cm long in your drawing and its body is 3 head lengths. How long is the body?
A horse 2.0 m long is modelled at 1 : 8. How long is the clay model, in centimetres?
Explain, using the words centre of gravity and base of support, why a lying animal is easier to model in clay than a leaping one.
Study task. Make a page of six quick sketches of one animal in at least three postures, from life or from photos. On two of them, mark the action line and the head-length measurements.
1. A single flowing line through the spine from head to tail that sums up the pose; it gives the figure movement and direction before details are added.
2. The joint halfway down the front leg looks like a knee but is really the wrist.
3. .
4. .
5. A lying animal has a wide base of support, with its body on the ground, and its centre of gravity is low and above that base, so it is stable. A leaping animal rests on one or two thin legs, so its centre of gravity is far outside a tiny base, and it falls or cracks.
6. Check: six sketches; three postures; action lines and measurements on two.
Which animal will you model, and which posture shows its character best while still standing safely in clay?
Sources and credits
