Well you could argue that any bipedal digitigrade leg is wrong.

XD Yeah, I used to be massively against bipedal digitigrade legs, but then I decided hell with it and just stick to the slightly plausible ones.

Well you could argue that any bipedal digitigrade leg is wrong.

If ostriches, emus, and the entire clade of theropod dinosaurs are wrong, I don't want to be right!

THAT's it, was trying to remember what convinced me it could maybe work on a furry XD
Dinosaurs!

You might also notice, they have squat bodies that have the centre of gravity low down and balanced. Don't try to compare apples with flightless birds.

look up the two legged walking dog, it has digi legs and can walk upright.

oh god THANK YOU
I've seen so many cringe-worthy digitigrade legs... this is great.

Haha, you're welcome XD Yeah, no kidding!

Well, I at least know that Ziel's Smilodon form, when on the "long-legged tip-toe", is actually Ziel standing her toes, and not digigrade.
I will probably draw her digigrade legs more than the tip-toe paws, but I wear the tip-toe paws on SL because I A) Don't like the Smilodon legs the av came with, and B) don't want to have to re-texture her digi leg so that it looks like she's wearing stockings.
So the tip-toe paws are a sort of solution to that.

Yeah, that one is totally plantigrade...like a human standing on tiptoes all the time. XD;

That 3rd one just made me bust out laughing XD

I've seen way too many people draw it like that, too! And just about every avatar on SL with digitigrade legs does that DX

Knee?
Ankle? XD

Yeah I'll have to pay attention to that more on SL, It's amusing the little fubar's you can catch

Haha, yes...there's also what Athelind (fellow biology nerd) calls "lumbar tail" (tail placed way up near the middle of the back...I see that in art too actually *facepalm*)

THAT specifically just bugs the crapola out of me when I see it. DX

My only guess is that folks do that so they can see more ass?

Me too D:< It's either that or lack of understanding how the spine works...possibly both.

"what is this tailbone you speak of?"

I have fairly recently heard a middlin' decent artist explain the lumbar tail by insisting that it just looks AWKWARD to have a tail jutting out between a couple of big, round, human-style buttcheeks. I can kind of see that, but it still makes me twitch.

I think having a tail jutting out the middle of your spine looks worse xD

Amen Dude! I see the incorrect ways way too much for my taste.

Indeed :c

I'm normally a little too shy to comment when I see artwork I like from good artists, but I thought i'd try and make an exception in your case ^^;

When i first started out i was doing it wrong, but with practice comes better solutions. I still dont think my digi legs come out quite right but this will definitely be a huge help when drawing legs for my characters. I personally hate the mid-spine tails. I prefer to extend the tailbone and just allow wardrobe editing to compensate. Tho any pointers you might have if you ever see my work would be greatly appreciated :3 I really like your work and look forward to seeing more of it. ^^;

Hey thanks! I'm really glad I actually helped!! Haha, I'm kind of a total biology nerd and have a lot of things like this I want to make tutorials out of for the people who don't enjoy spending all their time pondering the correct way to draw a human/animal hybrid, like some kind of mad scientist. XD
And yeah, the tails too high drives me crazy...and is simultaneously baffling, since people have a tailbone (making it totally anatomically possible to plot where a furry's tail would go) I always figured making a tail-hole for trousers wouldn't be a big deal either, and if a world/universe is full of furries they'd prolly actually be sold that way anyway.

I know right? Even like, a button flap or something would be fashionable and functional for a furry. X3 christ that's a lot of FFFF's X3 anyways I really look forward to seeing more of your work <:3

this actually helps me now i can learn the right way thank you

You're welcome! :D

I throw myself at the mercy of the court ;-;

I'm certainly guilty of number one. And I noticed it was unbalanced a year or so ago... And I just couldn't stop. ;-; I'm an improper leg addict! Shame, shame.

I guess the tip-toe thing comes from not being very commited... Liking the look of human legs, but the paw look for feet. I have a lack of commitment.

I think I'm going to try a few pictures drawing them making more sense.

Yeah, like I said in my artist comments...people do it as an aesthetic choice rather than it making actual sense XD BUT they are never digitigrade legs either way...they're tiptoes, haha. They're a bit of a pet peeve for me due to me being a biology nerd, but some people are willing to suspend anatomical disbelief more than me.

The second from the left is my suggested anatomical fix for that to turn it into digitigrade, though...and it's anatomically plausible!
I considered going into more detail here, but my wrist started to hurt, so I just left it at this ^^; The difference between those first two is that the actual digitigrade leg has a longer foot, shorter calf, the knees are more bent...and most importantly various parts of the leg are shifted for balance (the dotted lines indicate the proper balancing and cannot be drawn like that on the tiptoes one)

The way the two "right" ones are both look like they're tip toe walking. Maybe correct for something with 4 legs but an anthro couldn't realistically live like that, they would need a heel.

Walking on heels is called plantigrade and does not apply here ._.

Exactly, the third one is is mixture of both.

...
what.
WHAT.
NO. That third one is a complete horrific anatomical abomination. It shouldn't go on anything unless it's some sort of hideous deformed...thing.

Speaking as official biologist, yes, the right ones are walking on tip toes, and is perfectly feasible for bipedal locomotion. People frequently walk on tip toes (Even though we *don't* have feet designed for it), especially in such arts as ballet. Having two ankles per leg, as demonstrated in the wrong images, is NOT feasible for anything, for evolutionary reasons.

Yeah walking on tip toes permanently is so easy to do for something with 2 legs. You spend a day not using your heels and let me know your official biologist opinion on how that works for you.

I think what he's trying to say is that adding an extra joint into a leg just looks incredibly wonky. Animals have only one knee and only one ankle... even bats, humans, cows, and whales. (Remember that one chapter on animal locomotion in your high school biology book?)

So the legs should be altered slightly to make sense in a mythical world, but it's best to follow the rules of biology unless you're intentionally trying to make something look wonky/monstery/whatever.

Thank you, you were able to make the point much better than me, haha! That's exactly what I was trying to say. :3

There are two mindsets. The people who demand that something made up follows the rules of nature and those who just like their made up stuff to be ascetically pleasing. Frankly all four of these look wonky because I would never want to walk on tip toes forever.

Anthros aren't real either, why should their anatomy be any different. Hell you could call furries deformed humans and it still fits with what you said.

Gah! I see #3 all the time, and frankly, it bugs me a lot more than the far left.

As  zeili noted, sometimes, there are reasons to just shrug and go with the tippy-t0z. Adding an extra joint to the leg, though, is NEVER acceptable.

Even the SPIDERS I know don't do that.

 zieli, pardon.

Yeah, aesthetic rather than logical choice. They're still plantigrade legs on tiptoes, though. :P
And UGH yes, the 'extra joint' leg drives me absolutely insane!

Seeing this I think I'm guilty of the far left one. I need to just keep drawing and practicing. XD

well... actually 1 is still correct as long as it's drawn balanced.. technically it SHOULD look like a human leg on tip toes, that is actually the best way to explain it. That is what digitigrade is: walking on the digits. So the way a human looks balancing on their toes, is by definition digitigrade. It's the name of the locomotion, not the leg structure (which is why some animals can be semi-digitigrade.)

That's why the second one IS drawn balanced... :P

Yeah it's mainly just the statement at the bottom that confused me. x.x

Yeah, sorry...what I was trying to refer to is whether the leg is designed to be digitigrade or not, since most artists drawing these legs are drawing ie. cats and wolves that have legs built for that... I was trying to point out that, by contrast, the far left one is a leg meant to walk plantigrade that's just stood up on its tiptoe, since a human leg and a dog leg have very different proportions since they're meant for different locomotions.

...Did that make sense what I'm saying? I have a hard time expressing my meaning sometimes. x_x

Edited the description too, hopefully it makes more sense now. :P

yeah! Also I find it hilarious when people draw #3 that never draw animals normally. Usually happens with "WEREWOLVES" Lololololol. XD

If you look in my scraps you'll see I've tried doing digis and can't get them right. Thanks for the tip. :)

Ah yeah, I see that... you gotta add in the knee joint on those and you'll be good! Think you can see that, comparatively. You're close!
Glad I could be of help! :D

What are your thoughts on those bizarre Mewtwo legs?

Oh man I have no idea what the deal is with bird and dinosaur legs (research needed...damn, I gotta do that now), but some really resemble those!! The weird dewclaw thing that allows the feet to change positions is consistent with this (except Mewtwo just has stubs instead of claws). The times the foot flattens to the ground is sorta comparable to a dog sitting back on its haunches, anatomy-wise (is not #3 here)

Here's some comparisons to show what I mean...

The "flat stance" with dewclaw down...
best pic I could find of a dino leg doing this: http://www.fossilcavern.co.uk/image.....Allosaurus.jpg
on Mewtwo's legs: http://faqsmedia.ign.com/faqs/image/ani150.gif

The "digi stance" with dewclaw up...
dinosaur, again best pic I could find: http://www.nealadams.com/EarthProje...../newstuff3.jpg
on Mewtwo's legs: http://images.wikia.com/ssb/images/.....ewtwomelee.jpg

...
I think this makes me even more of a biology nerd...

Ah, I can see that.

And here I thought his legs were entirely arbitrary.

In other news, I keep reading 'Dewclaw' ad 'Deathclaw.' Curse you, Fallout.

I read something somewhere saying the human mind cannot invent something completely unique and can only draw upon things it's seen (buried in subconscious somewhere)... so it would actually make more sense to Mewtwo's legs to be at least partially based on dinosaur legs than completely arbitrary, too!

...yeah I know way too much trivia stuff and such... >_>;

You could probably take from various places, though, or embellish. Like how people who design aliens often base them off biological patterns or observations instead of animals proper. Looking at the Red/Green and Blue sprite, it looks like he was originally supposed to stand plantigrade. Yellow has him verrrrry slighty raised off the ground, but that was after the TV series. So it looks like it may actually have just slowly drifted to bird/dino legs.

An interesting note is that Mewtwo was apparently based on Giegue, the final boss of Mother 1. Similarly, Jigglypuff seems based on Kirby.

Oh, leg number three... XD

Haha, yeah DX
I see it waaay too often and it just makes me shake my head.

Believe it or not, there are examples of digitigrade animals walking upright--in particular, a dog missing its front legs has learned to walk on its hind ones.

And birds, as Athelind mentioned up top, are all digitigrade animals born walking upright XD
I've heard about things like the dogs too, actually!

There was one comission I made where the artist had to come up with leg braces for a digitigrade fur. I think he did fairly well.

I kind of now want to try something interesting with the third one.
Probably some sort of abomination of an anthro-creature.

Are you including the thigh in the fourth one as part of the correctness? Cause it needs to be much more fleshed out and squarish to be animal-like.

I mention it because it's my favorite type of anthro leg to draw.

I need to clean up the fourth one, actually... I kinda rushed it coz I was getting sick of working on this. ^^; Yeah, it's got some errors... here's a way better example of that leg the fourth is meant to be: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3399477/
I'll fix it later, thanks for reminding me, heh.

Ah yeah, that's much better. :3 It is the best leg for floof.

I dunno, I can imagine anthro legs evolving into something *kinda* like #3. Obviously not that long (damn thing looks broken in this image) but I'd think the pads where the toes meet the feet would be a bit thicker/wider if we wanted to be realistic.
I recall seeing someone here on FA actually doing anatomical drawings of that. And the ankle practically did become a second knee with the legs being somewhat straighter than in most anthro pics.

The third style makes me twitch every time I see it, gah! D: Thank you, this is a great guide! :)

Gah, yeah x_x
Really glad I could be of help with this! Was kinda lazy and only did the one step, but wanna try to do more tutorial-like things sometime.

do you thin the digitigrade on my fursona is richt ? http://www.furaffinity.net/view/7196452

Not quite...the legs are a bit unbalanced. Rather than the foot being angled straight downward, it should be more diagonal.
Here, bit hard to explain, so I did a real quick redline-ish thing for ya to demonstrate what I mean: http://i799.photobucket.com/albums/.....legredline.jpg

thank you so much you really helped me :3

Glad I could help!

hey again!
i made a V2 of my fursona with an new ref sheet and i hope i did the digitigrade better than my last time :3
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/7226934

Yeah, looks better now!

I HATE how people draw Digitigrade legs like plantigrade feet on toes!
Idk why pwople change digitigrade legs into a plantigrade leg with paw feet. THATS NOT HOW IT WORKS!
If they want human features to Digitigrade legs, just add muscles, nothing more nothing less.

Takes gall to show the only right way to do digitigrate legs and call it wrong.

🖕