Tutorial - Canine Paws

Of all parts of anatomy I draw, I think I get the most compliments on how I draw canine paws. (Which is flattering ;~;) It's going to be a task to explain how I draw them, because I don't really have any particular formula for doing so. At this point, they just kind of fall out of the tablet pen - However, I definitely did lots of studies on them when I first started out. (Waking up to dogs kicking me in the face probably helped too, here and there) ... I'll try to break down my method for how I construct them. The foundations of learning to draw anything true to real life is of course, real life reference. Ollie, Merlin and Eva volunteer their assistance.




The fondation - especially if drawing realistic paws - is the skeleton and how it relates to human anatomy. Here's a very useful comparison chart.




Credit for this image goes to (I believe) Kyle Hall - I've had it saved for a long time and this person's name is the only source I can find to the original image.

Note how the upper bones are fairly similar between human and dog, but toward the digits - The bones bunch up more compared to the proportions on the human. This really only leaves one big visible knuckle on the outward ridge of a dog's toes.

When I draw paws, I'm essentially just using basic shapes rather than complex pieces of skeleton. For example on this photo of Ollie's back legs, I can show how I typically construct paws.

The 'knuckles' are the red circles, the toes are the rounded blue shapes with sharp edges, and where the claws go, in pink.




Pawpads have unique, fun shapes. The outermost two pads are parallel to each other, and so are the closest two pads. The bigger pad sits under all of these (It almost looks like a stretched out hidden Mickey) with the tip pointing toward the middle of the toes. Some breeds have a lot of space between the toe pads and the larger pad, (e.g. Merlin the Greyhound) and other breeds have virtually no space between.
Note the differences between dogs:



(I know, it looks a bit like a teddy bear)
Ollie's paws are essentially default dog paws, Merlin's are stretched out / further apart, and Eva's big fat paws have way bigger toes. She also has a tonne of fluff between her toes - Some animals just have this and it can be fun to incorperate into your style.

With the information of what mirrors the other areas, you can build guides for properly aligning paw-toes you draw, like this:



Or for something at a 3/4 angle:



For very toony things you can disregard anatomy alltogether and use very round circles and have fun:



Endless paw-sibilities.
I'll go now.
(I hope this helped! ❤)