If you’ve hung around my site long enough, then you’ll know that my favorite fantasy equines are pegasi. Since I’ve spent much of my artistic life trying to draw them, I decided it was high time to write a “how to” article. Today I’ll walk you through my five-step process as I draw my first illustration of Finley, a pegasus from my gaslamp fantasy WIP Skybound.
Tools You’ll Need
- Paper
- Pencils (A regular No. 2 is fine, but if you’ve got good drawing pencils, I recommend H, HB, 2B, and 6B)
- Eraser
- Clipboard (optional)
- Blending stump (optional) (can be substituted with wadded up tissue paper or toilet paper)
- OPTIONAL: Watercolor pencils, water, and paintbrush. I used watercolor pencils to shade in my pegasus, but you can use another medium of choice.
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Step One: Outline
As usual, I always start out with an outline. A horse is a collection of circles and curved lines. I wanted Fin to look like he was loping, but instead I ended up with this bouncing prance. It fits his personality. The wings are basically two perpendicular lines, as you can see from the illustration on the right. This is usually done in an HB or less pencil.
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Step Two: Sketch Out
After I’m satisfied with my loose outline, I begin the sketchout. This is basically where I make sure I know where I wanted the leg and head postures. I also begin to solidify the angles of the wings. I like using B for this step.
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Step Three: Solidify Shape
Finally working on the solid lines! I tweak hooves and head shape as I go, and since I can’t fit the wings completely unfolded, I sketch them half-folded. I also add some *cough* extra stuff since Fin’s a stallion and not a mare (that step isn’t required, I just like being accurate with my drawings).
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Step Four: Fill in Details
Now it’s time to add muscling. If I was going to make it a solid pencil sketch, I would use a 2B, but since I’m using watercolor pencil I just use my B lightly to get an idea where I’ll need to shade. I also do the feathering on the wings.
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Step Five: Shade In
A light sketch-in using a burnt umber and a terra cotta pencil. 
Using my paintbrush, I add the lightest amount of water to blend the colors together, adding more burnt umber to get the correct shading. 
Adding black points and finishing shading. I messed up on one of his hooves. 
Using yellow, marigold, and gold, I color in the wings. 
Slight hints of burnt umber and terra cotta give the feathers a bronze look.
I used Primacolor watercolor pencils for this, mainly in Terra Cotta, Black, and Burnt Umber. Using the Burnt Umber to make him darker as I wished, I was able to get the shade of bay I was going for, before I filled in the mane, tail, and legs in black. Finally, when everything else was filled in, I did the wings, using yellow, gold, and the slightest hint of Terra Cotta and Burnt Umber to get his bronze color.
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And that is my five step process for drawing pegasi! I hope this was helpful to you.
Here is a slide of the entire process:
A light sketch-in using a burnt umber and a terra cotta pencil. Using my paintbrush, I add the lightest amount of water to blend the colors together, adding more burnt umber to get the correct shading. Adding black points and finishing shading. I messed up on one of his hooves. Using yellow, marigold, and gold, I color in the wings. Slight hints of burnt umber and terra cotta give the feathers a bronze look.