# three toe paws or four toe paws



## pudgeyredfox (Sep 29, 2012)

Which paw style do you prefer, the three toed one or the four toed one, or a more human shaped foot?

Also with hands, do you prefer the more realistic five fingered ones, or the toony four fingered ones?


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## burakki (Sep 29, 2012)

I prefer five "finger-paws" on the hands, and four toes on the feet.


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## PapayaShark (Sep 29, 2012)

Feet depends on the species. But always 5 fingers.


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## TreacleFox (Sep 29, 2012)

More human like hands but with animal pads, 4 toes; digitgrade legs. C:


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## Teal (Sep 29, 2012)

I don't really care, and how many I draw them with depends on the animal.


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## Vega (Sep 29, 2012)

Digit-grade legs for the win.  :3


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## Shoki (Sep 29, 2012)

Depends on what animal I'm drawing. I do human like hands, but the feet style/number of toes depends on what I think looks good with which character.


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## Saellyn (Sep 29, 2012)

Vega said:


> Digit-grade legs for the win.  :3


Both plantigrade and digitigrade look really strange on anthro, though digitigrade looks better. There needs to be some kind of hybrid-type between the two. :C


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## Day Coydog (Sep 29, 2012)

4 on hands 3 on feet (non-digitigrade)


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## HipsterCoyote (Sep 29, 2012)

Toe number aside,

What are y'all's preferences in placement/shape of the paw pads and whether or not there's that little uh, carpal pad?  (in species where it's applicable like, dogs). I've seen some different approaches on the shapes of the paw pads and some people put in the little carpal pad bump below the wrist and some people don't.  

Reason I'm asking is 'cause I want to make some hand-paws and see if I can't sell them, and I figured this'd be a convenient place to by-the-way ask.


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## Percy (Sep 29, 2012)

I prefer five fingered hands, and have no preference on paws.


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## Heliophobic (Sep 29, 2012)

Shoki said:


> Depends on what animal I'm drawing. I do human like hands, but the feet style/number of toes depends on what I think looks good with which character.



Bob looks great with six toes, but Fred is totally a three.


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## PapayaShark (Sep 29, 2012)

Saellyn said:


> Both plantigrade and digitigrade look really strange on anthro, though digitigrade looks better. There needs to be some kind of hybrid-type between the two. :C



Nah, plantigrade looks way better. And less back-breaking.


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## HipsterCoyote (Sep 29, 2012)

How would Plantidigrade work, man.


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## Fuzzle (Sep 29, 2012)

I used to draw 3 toed feet until I realized I was doing it not realizing animals had an extra toe. Considering I wasn't intending a cartoon style, It's strange it took me so long to realize my paws looked strange. Now I try for realistic feet, small, 4 toes, a mixture of human anatomy and animal. I try to blend the two for the best combination.


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## Heliophobic (Sep 29, 2012)

HipsterCoyote said:


> How would Plantidigrade work, man.



With feet instead of paws. But those footpaw things because those don't look as weird as human feet on an anthro.


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## Fallowfox (Sep 29, 2012)

Saellyn said:


> Both plantigrade and digitigrade look really strange on anthro, though digitigrade looks better. There needs to be some kind of hybrid-type between the two. :C



Sod it and go ungulate.


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## Butters Shikkon (Sep 29, 2012)

For me, it really depends on the artist's skill and style for both hands and feet, but I think 5 fingers is a nice mirror to the human aspect.


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## Fuzzle (Sep 29, 2012)

Little comparison for how I did feet back in 2004/2005 and now.





Back in the day, I used to draw furry feet much like a club. Like the new TMNT for Nickelodeon. 
I also did them much more digitigrade as well. Today I've done a more subtle digitigrade where the foot is
more human in shape and size but the area of balance is centered around the very end of the foot with 
the pads, leaving the heel of the foot to serve as a normal human heel or the ankle joint.


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## Fallowfox (Sep 29, 2012)

http://chandlerpt.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Homunculus1.jpg
This map of the human body correlates size with the concentration of nervous processing. 
http://edu.blogs.com/.a/6a00d83451f00f69e2014e870e530b970d-500wi 
as does this rather disturbing sculpture

I wonder whether this pattern of nerve ending concentration correlates with how likely people are to animalise an area in their furry drawings. 
Excluding the head, the generally more inervated torso is generally the least animalised area in furry art which I've seen, which is curious.


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## Oly (Sep 29, 2012)

Five toes. Or three. Sometimes four.

Honestly i don't think about it much, i jsut draw whatever comes to mind. Sometimes i don't even actually draw toes, in fast and loose toony sketches.


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## Chols (Sep 29, 2012)

I feel like the number of toes looks best if it matches the amount of digits on the actual animal's foot.  For most pawed mammals, that's four digits.  I'm personally fond of digitigrade feet on anthro characters, but it only seems to work well on barefoot characters (unless someone's made good-looking shoes for a digi character, that would be neat).

As for hands, I always liked it when hands look sort of paw-like, but sometimes they seem limited in articulation compared to a human hand.


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## Heliophobic (Sep 29, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> http://edu.blogs.com/.a/6a00d83451f00f69e2014e870e530b970d-500wi



Why is this so cool looking?


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## Calemeyr (Sep 29, 2012)

I prefer plantigrade feet with NO pawpads, four/five toes (or three front toes and a rear facing toe if you have, like an uplifted dragon-thing, it'll have these to land/climb things). Honestly guys, digitigrade, upright, bipeds don't work.

For hands, I prefer five (or maybe four) fingers. NO pawpads. You cannot manipulate objects with pawpads. Also, a tail on a biped would not be needed, and likely would not even exist on it, unless the bidped could fly, in which it would need the (long) tail for maneuverability (as well as large wings and hollow bones). 

So yeah, realism all the way. You can deform them if you want to get stylized (bigger animu eyes, big ol' heads for toony characrers, and tails/paw pads for more toony character), but once you start adding unnecessary animal parts (like the digitigrade bear ugh) to realistic characters (or complicated, realistic traits in a wrong manne to toony characters) it loses all believability and sticks out like a sore thumb.


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## Fallowfox (Sep 30, 2012)

Marcus Stormchaser said:


> I prefer plantigrade feet with NO pawpads, four/five toes (or three front toes and a rear facing toe if you have, like an uplifted dragon-thing, it'll have these to land/climb things). Honestly guys, digitigrade, upright, bipeds don't work.
> 
> For hands, I prefer five (or maybe four) fingers. NO pawpads. You cannot manipulate objects with pawpads. Also, a tail on a biped would not be needed, and likely would not even exist on it, unless the bidped could fly, in which it would need the (long) tail for maneuverability (as well as large wings and hollow bones).
> 
> So yeah, realism all the way. You can deform them if you want to get stylized (bigger animu eyes, big ol' heads for toony characrers, and tails/paw pads for more toony character), but once you start adding unnecessary animal parts (like the digitigrade bear ugh) to realistic characters (or complicated, realistic traits in a wrong manne to toony characters) it loses all believability and sticks out like a sore thumb.



Practically every bird is a digitgrade biped, notably the ostrich. 

I agree that realism is appreciable in art, or something I personally enjoy.


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## Zenia (Sep 30, 2012)

I like four toes and five fingers. No pawpads on the hands.


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## Fallowfox (Sep 30, 2012)

Saliva said:


> Why is this so cool looking?



Because medical art is the beans. ^^


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## Smart Dragon (Sep 30, 2012)

Mmm, more realistic on the feet. As for the paws/hands, three fingered. But I always have tha claws. *scratches air*


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## badlands (Sep 30, 2012)

human type hands with 5 digits, maybe with an 'echo' of the paw pads



Saliva said:


> But those footpaw things because those don't look as weird as human feet on an anthro.



and basically this with the feet, 5 digits make the foot look 'crowded'. i also think it looks better if the paw pads are retained on the ball of the foot


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## Batty Krueger (Sep 30, 2012)

My fursuit has 5 fingers, 4 toes.  As does my fursona.


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## Tigercougar (Sep 30, 2012)

I used to like three toes/four fingers, but now I prefer four toes/five fingers. Depending on my mood I also prefer to see the dewclaws/vestigial digits on the animal's hind feet.


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## Andy Dingo Wolf (Oct 1, 2012)

I keep a human style foot and leg, however, claws and padding still exist :3


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## Ranguvar (Oct 2, 2012)

I prefer human style hands and feet (plantigrade) with pads and claws.


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## Earth Rio (Oct 2, 2012)

My own fursona has five fingers, and three toes.


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## rcdragon (Oct 2, 2012)

Hands: Always five fingers in a human style format. No pads, but claws are okay.

Feet: Depends on the species. In general, whatever the real animal would have is appropriate (usually four toes, occasionally three). Same rules apply for pads/claws. As for the digitigrate vs plantigrade debate, a species that is normally digitigrade usually looks fine plantigrade, but one that is naturally plantigrade never looks good digitigrade. Also, I don't think a digitigrade stance should be used on characters that wear clothing.


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## Harbinger (Oct 2, 2012)

I think digitigrade legs with realistic looking paws are the best. As for hands gotta be 5 fingers, i dont understand in cartoons why its so much more hard work to do one more finger when they've already done 4 other digits. I would also go with pads and claws on the hand.


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## Fallowfox (Oct 2, 2012)

Harbinger said:


> I think digitigrade legs with realistic looking paws are the best. As for hands gotta be 5 fingers, i dont understand in cartoons why its so much more hard work to do one more finger when they've already done 4 other digits. I would also go with pads and claws on the hand.



In animation they use 4 digits on the hands because two of your fingers are joined by a tendon, so in most expressions and gestures these two fingers stay parallel with one another. 

Turning them into one finger therefore decreases the opportunity for obvious gestural mistakes.


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## NaxThewolf (mike) (Oct 19, 2012)

five hand for paws 4  from an artists point of view its what evers eaiser to draw i guess :I


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## benignBiotic (Nov 11, 2012)

I'm very particular about hands. Having the wrong claws or awkward hands will turn me right off a piece/character. I like four-fingered because the digits tend to be bigger than on a five-fingered hand which is to my taste. Generally I like pads on the hands/fingers. 

As for feet always digitigrade. A very human-looking plantigrade foot looks weird on anthros.


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## Iudicium_86 (Nov 11, 2012)

Depending on species and style (toon or cute vs. realistic). But usually 4 'toes/claws' on the feet. Always 5 fingers on the hands. For toony or cute styles I go with 3 big toes on the feet.


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## RayO_ElGatubelo (Nov 12, 2012)

My characters are werecreatures. They have five fingered hands with paw pads, and their feet match the original species. That means four toes for dogs and cats!

You gotta have digitigrade legs in this kind of things. Shoe bursts FTW.


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## fbocabral (Nov 12, 2012)

for me, it depends of the drawing style. If it is more cartoon like, It is better looking with 3 toes and 4 fingers.
for something more realistic, 4 or 5 toes/fingers for me is fine.
particulary, I like drawing 4 toes/fingers because i think it is easier and looks better for my style.

but about the feet, I don't like human like feet... I preffer something in between


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## Harbinger (Nov 13, 2012)

-EDIT- Accidentally didnt realise it was an old thread and responded to it again -_-


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## KobuMutt (Nov 13, 2012)

Four.  Looks the best to me x3


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## Kit H. Ruppell (Nov 13, 2012)

Kit has five digits on his hands and feet, and walks in a plantigrade fashion. He does have soft hairless pads on the last joint of each finger and toe, and on his palms and soles. The nails are black and a little claw-like.


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## bkatt500 (Nov 13, 2012)

Generally I don't really draw very 'toony' things, so I try to get either the number of fingers and toes the species has or human numbers.  Paw pads and digitigrade vs plantigrade vary with what I'm going for.  Most of the time I at least attempt to do paw pads, which for my characters are just furless patches, at the minimum just making the entire bottoms of the hands furless.  When I do choose to use digitigrade I normally use tip-toe style legs so that drawing clothing on them is easier, plus it just looks more natural imho, but I will never give a mammal that is plantigrade in nature a digitigrade anthro (unless it's someone's character, in which case the design wasn't mine).


> I wonder whether this pattern of nerve ending concentration correlates with how likely people are to animalise an area in their furry drawings.
> Excluding the head, the generally more inervated torso is generally the least animalised area in furry art which I've seen, which is curious.


That's actually pretty interesting.  I think that this might also have to do with some artists not knowing the difference.  It could also have to do with what people find sexy or attractive, and a lot of people find human torsos attractive.


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## Batty Krueger (Nov 14, 2012)

Batty says 4 toes are sexier cuz he is sleep deprived.


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## summer salt (Nov 14, 2012)

Zenia said:


> I like four toes and five fingers. No pawpads on the hands.


Same. Three doesn't seem like enough for most animals.


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## Avelore (Nov 14, 2012)

d.batty said:


> Batty says 4 toes are sexier cuz he is sleep deprived.



Sleep deprived or not, batty makes sense. 

For me, however, I'd say neither 3 or 4. I have 5 digits on my hindfeet, which are almost like hands in the respect that they are prehensile, but the "thumbclaw" is higher up the foot, facing inward a little to make use of grabbing onto branches, or ripping out the guts of prey who get on my tail.
..Metaphorically speaking, of course.


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## Rukani (Nov 21, 2012)

I love all styles really, and the number of toes depends on the species, I normally keep it realistic, my fursona Ruko has three toes since she's a bird (No forth toe on the back as she's a hybrid.) I tend to like realistic five fingers on the hand though.


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## Sarcastic Coffeecup (Nov 21, 2012)

For legs, 4-3 toes, for me, doesn't make a difference. If it's digitigrade I'd be prone to choose 3, but plantigrade would get 4-5 toes.
As for fingers, always 5


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## Fnoros (Nov 22, 2012)

I prefer plantigrade feet with 5 toes and 5 fingers. Feet with footpads, and all with claws. I also kind of like digitigrade if it isn't too pronounced as long as there are 4 toes and a dewclaw.


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## Traven V (Nov 23, 2012)

Doesn't matter. I've seen good art (and fursuits) in both as well as five.


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## Takeo Wolf (Nov 28, 2012)

5 fingered hand with  4 toes on the feet


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## CanYouHearMeow (Dec 14, 2012)

I have noticed many MANY cartoonists have switched from drawing three to drawing four toes on their animal OCs.  ...Which is odd if you consider how many cartoon animals have only three toes per foot.  I'll name a few.  Pikachu (as well as almost every animal-form Pokemon: Mew, Eevee, Vulpix, Lucario, Raichu, Pachirisu, Buneary, etc), almost any Disney character (i.e., The Rescue Rangers, the Talespin cast, the Gummi Bears, the Ducktales cast, the Wuzzles, Bonkers, most any animal character appearing in any pre-Lion-King film, etc), almost every Warner Bros. character (i.e., Bugs Bunny -any Looney Toon- the Tiny Toons, the Animaniac cast, the cast of Taz-Mania, the cast of Krypto the Superdog, etc), almost every Hannah-Barbara character (i.e., Yogi Bear, Top Cat, Huckleberry Hound, Secret Squirrel, etc), most Nickelodeon characters (i.e., The Angry Beavers, Rocko, Ren, -most any animal character-), most shows from NickJr (i.e., the cast of Franklin, most animals from Go Diego Go, anything produced by Saban and DIC), most PBS characters (i.e., the cast of Dragon Tales, Clifford/Clifford's Puppy Days, Martha Speaks, -select animal characters from various shows-), and virtually every other character, well-known or otherwise (i.e., Tom -from Tom & Jerry- the Catillac Cats, the DinoBabies, Garfield, the cast of AotLK, most any animal character from Rankin-Bass, etc).  Exceptions: Scooby-doo, Heathcliff, Felix the Cat, Woody Woodpecker, Jerry -from Tom & Jerry- Rocky & Bullwinkle, and some select Chuck Jones characters.  My guess is the cartoon animal evolved a fourth toe as the result of The Lion King (which was immensely popular) and the CGI boom (most any CGI character has four toes).  If you think about it, most every four-toed cartoon animal is a recent creation (save for Scooby-Doo) beginning from The Lion King/Toy Story (Slinky Dog) and continuing from this day. One may argue that it's because of Slinky that your OC has a fourth toe.


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## Validuz (Dec 14, 2012)

TreacleFox said:


> More human like hands but with animal pads, 4 toes; digitgrade legs. C:



Yupp~. :3


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## Seas (Dec 14, 2012)

My fursona has 4 toes on each hind foot (digitigrade), and 4 fingers on each hand which also count as front legs at quadripedal movement. 
His species doesnÂ´t have thumbs but that is partially compensated by the motion range of the two side fingers, although they are still at a slight disadvantage at hand dexterity compared to a human.


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## Retro (Dec 16, 2012)

Plantigrade, five fingers, five toes. That's what I prefer


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## RailRide (Dec 16, 2012)

My _standard_ character design calls for four-fingered hands without pads, and three-toed plantigrade feet. 

But those specs are not written in stone. If I'm depicting my own characters alongside someone else's where those aspects are rigidly defined, I sometimes opt to modify mine to fit in (excluding digitigrade feet and/or pawpads-on-hands). I've depicted as many as four toes on a plantigrade foot, only omitting the fifth because at that point things were getting crowded.

---PCJ


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## EllieTheFuzzy (Dec 16, 2012)

Usually three, With the foot looking large and such, Cool and a bit cute i will say 







Max's feet being an example 

Hands wise, .... Claws >:3, But if you have to go, 3 or 4 here (4 is pretty cartoon-y, but 3 looks damn awesomely epic if you can pull it off right)


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## Deo (Dec 16, 2012)

Depends on the animal. Though I have to say I am so fucking sick of seeing digitigrade bears and other animals that ARE NOT DIGITIGRADE. It's like some uber furry fad to change every species to digitigrade even if that means breaking their legs.

RAGE
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/9477981/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/9477195/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4209620/


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## Batty Krueger (Dec 17, 2012)

Deo said:


> Depends on the animal. Though I have to say I am so fucking sick of seeing digitigrade bears and other animals that ARE NOT DIGITIGRADE. It's like some uber furry fad to change every species to digitigrade even if that means breaking their legs.
> 
> RAGE
> http://www.furaffinity.net/view/9477981/
> ...


Ugh, that last one is awful. It's so...smashed?  I dunno how to describe it.


Edit: noticed the model was to small for the suit.  Still, burrs no digitigrade!!


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## RadioactiveRedFox (Dec 17, 2012)

I typically prefer feet/paws with four toes, paw pads, claws and hands with four fingers, paw pads and claws. I'm partial to plantigrade legs, but digitigrade looks cool if done properly and if the species has digitigrade legs to begin with.


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