How to Draw a Horse Face

The horse is one of the most beautiful and graceful animals in the world. That is why we created this guide on how to draw a horse face.

This horse face drawing tutorial will be somewhat similar to our previous tutorial on drawing a horse head. Unlike our horse head tutorial, here we focused more on the horse’s face and the details that give it its characteristic appearance.

Here we tried to make the drawing process even more intuitive and simple. If you follow all the steps, you will end up with a fairly realistic horse face drawing.

How to draw a horse face step by step

Step 1: Sketch the horse’s head

First, sketch the outline of the horse’s head. It looks like an elongated, rounded shape with a wide top and a tapered bottom. Note that this shape does not have to be symmetrical.

Step 2: Mark the facial features

Sketch the basic details of the horse’s face. At the top of the head, draw the ears as two small trapezoids. The eyes will be located a little lower, so mark their positions with a pair of short, smooth lines. Finally, outline the nostrils.

Step 3: Draw the horse’s mane

The mane is one of the most distinctive features of a horse. You can see horses with incredibly beautiful manes in various cartoons, but in reality, the mane looks like a lush mass of long hair. Let’s draw it.

Step 4: Draw the horse’s eyes

Now draw the horse’s eyes. Use rounded, almond-shaped forms and position them at a slight angle.

Step 5: Refine the head contours

Give the horse’s head its final shape. Slightly widen the contours around the eyes, and then narrow them noticeably toward the mouth.

Step 6: Add nostrils and mouth

Now draw a pair of nostrils as asymmetrical ovals and add a wavy line separating the upper and lower jaws.

Step 7: Refine the mane and ears

Add the final outlines of the mane and draw the lines that indicate the inner parts of the ears. There is no need to detail every strand of the mane separately. Simply outline the overall mass of the hair and add most of the texture along the edges.

Step 8: Add shadows with hatching

Now add some shadows. To draw the shadows in a realistic way, cover the darker areas with light hatching. You can first outline the boundaries of these areas and then add more hatching. If you don’t want to add shadows, feel free to skip this step.

Step 9: Refine the final lines

Remove the extra lines from the horse face drawing and make the final lines more defined. Check the whole drawing and correct any remaining inaccuracies.

The steps in this tutorial showed you how to draw a horse’s face and convey the animal’s characteristic features.

Now it is important to practice what you have learned and, if possible, develop your skills further. Try drawing a full horse in detail, using this tutorial to construct the facial features.